The Siblings

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra, and the case I'm going to share with you today takes place in the Trinity Alps Preserve, which is in the general vicinity of Shasta Trinity National Forest in Northern California. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this 2.1 million acre landscape is the largest national forest in California. There are mountains, lakes, the South Fork of the Trinity River, and a wide variety of wildlife. Visitors come from all over to boat, fish, hike, picnic, and during the winter months go skiing or snowmobiling. People often do what's referred to as dispersed camping, which is camping outside of developed sites. This is for folks who want to disconnect and be more secluded in nature versus being around other people. There are no restroom facilities, trash pickup services, or fire pits when you choose to set up a dispersed campsite. It's just you, the woods, and the quietness of the forest. But in April 1998, that serene picture was shattered when hikers discovered the lifeless body of a young woman buried in a shallow grave at an abandoned campsite. The horrific reality of how she'd ended up there and why was a story of betrayal and cruelty unlike anything law enforcement at the time could imagine. This is Park Predators. In the early morning hours of Saturday, April 18th, 1998, two hikers walking in the woods in Trinity Alps Wilderness in Shasta County, California, came across an empty but recently used campsite. They noticed trash and litter scattered on the ground and remnants of what looked like a makeshift fire pit. As they got closer, they realized something in the charred pit had the shape of a human body. So, right after they saw the fire pit, they started to look for it. Right away, they left the area and reported what they'd found to the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, which was located in nearby Redding, California. According to a former investigator who spoke with producers for the television program Murder Among Friends, when authorities arrived on scene a few hours later with cadaver dogs, they assessed the situation and by Sunday the 19th, they found what the hikers had reported: a young woman's body, partially buried in what appeared to be the remnants of a fire pit. She didn't have any clothes on. She was wearing a tuxedo. She was wearing a sweater. She was wearing clothes on and looked to be about 19 or 20 years old. Based on the state of her remains, it was clear that she'd been in the woods for a while, at least 10 days or so. It took a few hours for investigators to properly unearth her remains, but when they did, they noticed she'd suffered some pretty severe injuries to her head and arms. For example, there were injuries to her wrists, a black plastic bag had been put over her head, and there were visible bruises on her body. Investigators also smelled traces of alcohol, which I imagine made them wonder if perhaps she'd been drinking or been around people who were drinking at the time of her death. At the campsite not far from her body, authorities found a purse with a driver's license in it that indicated the victim was a 20-year-old woman named Laura Sinner. Laura's photo ID was a dead ringer for the victim, so it didn't take long for investigators to put two and two together. Laura's body was eventually transported to a local coroner's office for an autopsy, where dental records would later confirm her identity. An interesting clue investigators discovered not far from her body at the crime scene was a large dented can of chili beans that appeared to have blood and hair on it. They seized that item as evidence and then turned their attention to learning more about Laura. A quick check of the Department of Motor Vehicles database revealed she drove a red Honda Civic, but authorities working the crime scene hadn't found that vehicle or any cars near Laura's body. So they put out a notice for other law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for her Civic. And after that, they traveled to an apartment address for her in Redding, where I have to assume either her driver's license or car registration indicated she lived. At the apartment, investigators found a 21-year-old man named Tim Smith, who told them that he and Laura had previously dated and been engaged, but presently were no longer together. Tim said around March 30th, so more than two weeks earlier, they'd broken off their engagement and she'd moved out of his apartment. When authorities broke in on Laura, they found that she had been in a relationship with a man named Tim Smith. When they broke the news to Tim that Laura had been murdered, he seemed genuinely upset. He explained that he and Laura had met about a year prior while serving at a Christian mission in Washington state. They'd quickly fallen in love and in March of 1998 had moved to California together. Coverage by the record Searchlight explains in more detail that in October 1997, several months before moving with Tim, Laura's mother had passed away after a swift battle with leukemia. After that, Laura had briefly roomed with a friend before going to live with her father, Ken Sinner, in Salem, Oregon. Her brother, Ryan, told producers for Murder Among Friends that during this period of time, Laura was just kind of lost in life, and so her decision to move to Redding, California with Tim for a fresh start was seemingly birthed from that. The couple's move was entirely spearheaded by Tim, who'd wanted to be closer to his younger brother, Paul Smith Jr. As kids, the two Smith brothers had endured a rough upbringing in the foster care system after their father left their mother to start a family with Tim. Laura and Tim had been married for a with someone else and was eventually convicted of sex crimes. These hardships had cemented a lifelong bond between Paul and Tim, which is why living in close proximity to one another was so important to Tim. When the men became adults, they discovered they also had an 18-year-old half-sister named Lori Smith. And in April 1998, she was living with Paul at their father's home in Redding. Her, Paul, and Tim were known to spend a lot of time together hanging out. Tim explained to investigators that not long after he and Laura arrived in California and broke things off, he said he hadn't seen her again after that, but believed she'd been temporarily staying with Paul and Lori since they were all part of the same friend group, and Laura really had no other place to go. Meanwhile, in Washington state, Laura's loved ones learned the news of her murder from members of a local sheriff's office there. Her brothers Jason and Ryan told producers for Murder Among Friends that learning their sister had been killed in such a brutal way was extremely difficult. According to coverage by Oxygen, Laura's dad, Ken Sinner, had been worried about her for a few weeks by that point because he hadn't spoken with her on the phone since April 1st. It was at that time she'd revealed to her dad that Tim had ended their relationship. Her father offered to send her money so she could come home to his place in Oregon, but she declined and said she wanted to stay in California. No one in her family could understand why anyone would want to harm Laura, let alone kill her. They described her as a happy, selfless Christian with a big heart who worked with people with disabilities. By all accounts, she was an overall nice young woman with no apparent enemies. Naturally, her brother Ryan's first thought was to suspect his sister's former fiancé, Tim. And he wasn't alone in thinking that. Authorities wanted to learn more about Tim, too, as well as his siblings, Paul and Lori. So after investigators spoke with Tim, they got a hold of Lori, and she confirmed a lot of what Tim had said, which was that he and Laura had broken up. Lori said that she and Paul had welcomed Laura in as a roommate, even though she didn't have a lot of money. However, recently, things had become a bit strained amongst the housemates. Lori said that tensions revolved around Laura's disapproval of 20-year-old Paul being in a relationship with a 14-year-old girl named Amy Stevens. Laura had made it clear on more than one occasion that she felt the couple's relationship was inappropriate due to the fact that she and Paul had been in a relationship for a long time. Despite that, though, Amy and Paul had continued seeing one another, and over time, tensions between Amy and Laura festered. Lori explained that Amy would become jealous whenever Paul interacted with Laura, and the teen definitely didn't like the fact that Laura shared a place with Paul and his half-sister. There was also another person in the mix, Lori's boyfriend, 19-year-old Eric Rubio. He was good friends with Paul and regularly hung out at Paul, Lori, and Laura's apartment. Lori's boyfriend, Eric Rubio, was also good friends with Paul and regularly hung out at Paul's apartment. Lori's boyfriend, Eric Rubio, was also good friends with Paul and regularly hung out at Investigators interviewed Lori, they spoke with Amy, and she straight up admitted that she'd never liked Laura Sinner, and basically wished she wasn't part of their friend group. She said that about a week earlier, she and Laura had gotten into an argument while everyone was hanging out at Paul and Lori's place, because Laura had once again made a comment about the six-year age gap between her and Paul. Amy said she kind of gave Paul an ultimatum after that, that he needed to kick Laura out of his place or else, but that never ended up happening. Not long after that argument, Amy said Paul invited everyone to go on a camping trip in the Trinity Alps. According to Murder Among Friends, he was really into animal trapping and hunting, and the National Forest was a place he'd set up some of his traps in the past, so he was very familiar with it. Amy said that the camping trip was intended to be sort of a reset for everyone. They were all going to party, drink, hang out, and spend some time in the great outdoors. But things had not ended up that way. According to what Amy told him to do, investigators, at some point during the group's outing, Laura and Paul had gotten into an argument because Laura had tried to make a romantic pass at him, which he rejected. Apparently super embarrassed by this and slightly intoxicated, Laura quickly ran off into the woods and disappeared. Amy said no one saw her again after that and eventually everyone else in the group just decided to leave the campsite to go back to Reading. They all assumed that Laura had found her own way home. Now, even though investigators still had a lot of questions about Amy's version of events, they had no evidence that could disprove it. Basically, they needed to do more digging to determine if she was actually telling them the truth. So for the time being, they didn't immediately take her into custody, but they certainly kept what she told them in their back pocket. Because they still had two more people they wanted to talk with, Eric Rubio and Paul Smith Jr. According to the TV program Murder Among Friends, within just days of interviewing Amy Stevens and Lori Smith, investigators were in the process of locating and speaking with Eric Rubio, when Eric sort of came to them. By sheer luck, a deputy who'd been out on patrol was alerted by a gas station attendant that had spotted Laura's red Honda Civic parked at a pump. And, standing right next to it, filling it with gas, was Eric Rubio. Because Eric was in possession of their murder victim's car, investigators with Shasta County Sheriff's Office were able to immediately detain him and bring him in for questioning. Other coverage by Oxygen, though, stated that Eric and Paul were both actually already in custody for an unrelated vehicle theft offense. So, it was pretty easy for investigators to get a hold of them for questioning. Whatever the case was, though, when authorities got Eric into an interrogation room, he denied killing Laura and lamented that he was upset by the fact that it seemed he was the only person who was in trouble. Eventually, authorities confronted him with the fact that they knew about his friend group's recent camping trip to Trinity Alps. After hearing that, Eric's tune changed. He told investigators that, yes, Paul and Laura had gotten into an argument during the camping trip. But, unlike Amy's version of events, Eric said that the friends had been able to catch Laura before they could. So, they were able to catch Laura before she ran into the woods. In an attempt to calm things down, Laura, Amy, and Lori all went into a tent together to talk out their issues. But Eric said things hadn't calmed down after that, and the trio of women started up again, shouting at one another. Eventually, their spat turned into a full-fledged physical brawl, which spilled out into the middle of the group's campsite. According to Eric, he and Paul watched as Amy jumped on Laura and they traded blows. Then, Amy slammed Laura's head on a tree, and taunted her. Eric told investigators that he'd tried to squash the fight at one point, but Paul stopped him. Eventually, Lori jumped in to defend Amy and ended up striking Laura several times in the head with a large can of chili beans. Throughout most of this, Laura had seemed confused and asked why Lori and Amy were attacking her. Eventually, Eric said he and Paul intervened when they realized Laura was noticeably injured, and then everyone in the group watched as she staggered off into the woods, and vanished. Eric claimed that he and Paul went to look for her, but couldn't find her. The following morning, Eric said he'd driven Laura's vehicle back to Redding and parked it at his mother's house. He told investigators that he figured Laura would come to get it at some point, but when several days passed and she never did, he told his mom that Laura had left the area, and so his family could keep it. Authorities were highly suspicious of Eric's version of events, and told him that a lot of his story just, didn't make sense. They revealed that they knew for a fact that someone had put a bag over Laura's head, and there were several deep cuts to her wrists, none of which were good details his story had a good explanation for. So while the sheriff's office continued working the case, they kept Eric in custody for being in possession of Laura's car, and basically told him to sit tight. That same day, they executed a search warrant for Laura, Paul, and Lori's apartment. Inside the bed of Paul's truck, they discovered a dent puller device that had what appeared to be traces of blood on it. For those of you who don't know what a dent puller is, it's a long, rod-shaped cast iron device that is pointed on one end with a weight that slides. It's used to pull dents out of cars or sheet metal. When authorities had the substance that was on it tested for blood, it came back as a match for Laura. So with that information in hand, investigators quickly put Paul in an interrogation room, but he vehemently denied being involved in any kind of crime. He was not allowed to be involved in any kind of crime. He pointed the finger at Amy, claiming she'd been the person who'd instigated the attack on Laura, which his half-sister Lori eventually joined in on. He told deputies that after the assault, Laura had run into the woods, and when the group couldn't find her, they all left. But as you can imagine, investigators were not buying Paul's story. They'd talked to too many other people by that point who refuted that version of events. Plus, there was the bloody dent puller they'd found in his truck. So they confronted him with everything they'd gathered so far. And surprise, surprise, that's when Paul's story completely changed. He now admitted the whole Laura ran off into the woods detail was a lie. He said that after Lori and Amy had beaten Laura with the can of chili beans, she'd collapsed and started crying in his arms. Paul said he knew that what the girls had done would likely send them to prison for life, which was not something he felt they would survive. So he'd convinced Laura that because she was most likely going to die from the wounds to her head, she should spare herself further suffering. Out of respect for Laura's loved ones and anyone listening who has struggled with self-harm, I'm going to skip through the graphic details of what happened next because all you really need to know is that eventually Paul claimed he decided to take Laura's life himself by using the bag, the dent puller, and his own physical force. He said that after Laura was dead, he, Eric, Amy, and Paul were going to die from the wounds to her head. Amy and Lori worked together to cover up the crime by removing Laura's clothing, burning it, partially burying her body, and attempting to burn her as well. And really, it was Paul's confession here that sealed the fate for the whole friend group. On Tuesday, April 21st, 1998, a few days after Laura's body was found, sheriff's investigators arrested all of the defendants and charged them with conspiracy, first-degree murder, second-degree robbery, and false imprisonment by a criminal. When Lori, Paul, and Eric were arraigned in adult court, they pleaded not guilty and were each held under an estimated $1 million bail. Amy was arraigned in juvenile court since she was only 14 years old at the time, and just like her co-defendants, she also entered a plea of not guilty. The specific date Laura's murder occurred, though, was a bit hard to pin down. Now, even though charges had been laid, the specific date Laura's murder occurred was a bit hard to pin down. Authorities estimated it had happened sometime after April 1st, but they weren't 100% sure. Laura's autopsy, which was performed on Monday, April 20th, had not revealed a clear cause of death, though it's widely believed her fatal injuries came from the multiple blows to her head, asphyxiation, and blood loss from all her other horrific injuries. The day after his arrest, Paul told a reporter with the record searchlight that he estimated Laura's murder had taken place over the course of several hours during the afternoon and night of April 4th, but he wasn't positive about that date. He claimed that he'd been under the influence of alcohol, muscle relaxants, and cannabis at that time, and said that had it not been for the use of those substances, Laura's murder would likely have never happened. Eric also told the newspaper that he'd used those substances too while on the camping trip, and he believed that at one point, everyone in the friend group was intoxicated to a certain degree. Prosecutors handling the case didn't immediately state what they intended to seek the death penalty against the defendants, but as adults, Paul, Lori, and Eric certainly met all of the qualifications for it. Representatives for the state mentioned in court that they intended to try Amy as an adult too, because the crimes the group stood accused of involved special circumstances of torture and lying in wait, which were all qualifiers for capital punishment. In the wake of the arrest, Laura's stepfather told the record searchlight that ever since Laura moved to California, he was a victim of a murder. He'd feared something bad would happen to her. He described her as almost too trusting and sweet for her own good, and stated that in his opinion, her lack of emotional maturity caused her to get involved with the wrong type of people. He told the newspaper that growing up, Laura had struggled in grade school due to a learning disability, but she'd graduated high school in 1996 and seemed to have overcome that. She'd earned a scholarship to attend Grays Harbor College in Aberdeen, Washington, but unfortunately, not long after that, she met Tim Smith. And started hanging out with a different group of friends before eventually dropping out of school altogether. Her stepfather said that at one point, Laura's parents banned Tim from moving into their house, and so the couple lived temporarily in a tent. Then, one day, they left in Laura's car, headed for California. In late June, a few weeks after Laura's alleged killers were arraigned in court, the results of her autopsy were published. Those findings concluded that when she'd been found, she had a blood alcohol level of.7, and there were no other substances in her system. Her brother, James, Payson told producers for Murder Among Friends that he believed his sister had consumed alcohol on the night of her death, likely because she felt peer pressure to conform. He said she'd never really been a big drinker prior to that, so he suspected she'd only partaken in the partying aspect of the camping trip as a means to fit in with the rest of the group. At a preliminary hearing in July for Lori, Paul, and Eric, investigators testified about the brutality of the crime. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not going to go into the details of Lori's slaying because it's truly horrific and barbaric and it doesn't do anyone any good to rehash those details. But other information that emerged during the preliminary hearing included the fact that the friend group had tried to use Lori's bank card afterwards, and at least some of them had eaten from the can of beans that they'd used to beat her with. By the end of the hearing, the judge ruled there was sufficient evidence to move forward with a trial, but dismissed the group's charges for second-degree robbery because there wasn't enough evidence to prove any of them had stolen Lori's car. I know, that felt like a weird call to me too, but that's what the judge ruled. Anyway, a little over a month later, prosecutors announced they planned to seek the death penalty against Paul, but Lori and Eric would only face a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted. That decision seemed to have to do with the severity of each of their individual criminal records. According to Ann Hart's reporting for the Record Searchlight, Paul had a pretty extensive criminal record, dating back to when he was a minor, plus prosecutors strongly suspected he was the ringleader of the friend group. The state was confident that he was the person responsible for taking Lori's life in those final moments, but that's not to say that the others didn't contribute as well. Lori's stepdad told the newspaper, quote, What they did to her went beyond just simple murder. It's unimaginable to me. If they were so drugged up and didn't know what they were doing, then why did they hide the body? End quote. It was an understandable question to ask because, to me at least, the answer seems obvious. In November, after another court hearing, the youngest member of the group, Amy Stevens, learned that she would be tried as a juvenile. That meant if she was convicted, she would only face about 10 years in a youth detention facility and likely be free by the time she turned 25 years old. Her defense attorney had fought hard to convince the court that she'd merely acted as a pawn for Paul. In a hearing that was held on the issue, numerous new details about Amy's upbringing and background emerged, which painted her as a troubled teen who'd allegedly endured abuse at the hands of her father, the foster care system, and Paul himself. It was also revealed that Paul, who was married, by the way, but estranged from his wife, had met Amy just a few days after she was discharged from a mental health facility where she reportedly attempted to take her own life. She had no criminal history, and according to her attorney, should not have been labeled as a murderer since she only participated in Laura's beating. But prosecutors and mental health counselors who'd evaluated Amy strongly rejected the defense's mild portrayal of the 14-year-old. They stated that she had a history of duping people into thinking she was remorseful for bad behavior and would do anything to get her way. Shasta County's deputy district attorney was so convinced Amy needed to be tried as an adult that he asked the California Attorney General's office to petition an appellate court to review the trial court judge's decision to try her as a juvenile. But the AG declined to do so. Before that, a judge decided that Eric and Lori would be tried separately from Paul, but it was Amy who learned her fate first. According to Kimberly Bolander's reporting for the record Searchlight, because her case was handled by the juvenile court, she did not have a panel of jurors acting as a trier of fact. A judge was going to rule on her guilt or innocence. Paul, Eric, and Lori were all called as witnesses but invoked their Fifth Amendment rights to not incriminate themselves. So nothing useful came from them on the stand. After Amy's eight-week trial wrapped up in June 1999, the judge presiding over the case quickly decided that she was guilty of torture, lying in wait, robbery, and first-degree murder in the death of Laura Sinner. She was sentenced to a maximum of 10 years at the California Youth Authority. The prosecution said that Amy was not guilty The prosecutor told the courtroom that he wholeheartedly believed Amy and the rest of the defendants deserved to die for what they'd done to Laura. He expressed it to the court this way, quote, I am not nearly articulate enough to bring home the severity of what happened. I don't know that anyone is. He later continued, In my opinion, they are beyond rehabilitation and it's time to pay. End quote. In early July 1999, on the heels of Amy's case wrapping up, all of the dominoes really began to fall in place when some of the remaining defendants decided it was each person for themselves. By the end of July 1999, Lori Smith decided to cut a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in exchange for her testimony against Eric and Paul at their upcoming trials. Right after that, Eric took a deal too. He agreed to a first-degree murder and decided to plead no contest to second-degree murder. And just like Lori, promised prosecutors he would testify against Paul. Because he and Lori's plea agreements were for different degrees of murder, their potential punishments were different. She faced anywhere from 25 years to life and Eric was looking at 18 years to life. However, in a strange twist, Kimberly Bolander reported for the record Searchlight that just a few months after entering his no contest plea, Eric Rubio changed his mind. He said, He told his attorney he wanted to take back the plea, which a judge ultimately denied. But interestingly, the day he showed up in court to sort this all out, everyone couldn't help but notice a visible black eye on his face. He reportedly told prison staff his injury was a result of falling, but prosecutors suspected someone had possibly gotten to him while he was in jail. The only problem with that theory, though, was that Paul, the most likely person who'd want Eric not to testify in court, the most likely person who'd want Eric to testify in court, was Paul. According to the reporting, while awaiting his trial, Paul had actually been kept in an administrative lockdown most of the time for being uncooperative. So it would seem he couldn't have been the person to rough Eric up if, in fact, that did happen. I mean, I guess there's always the possibility Paul could have gotten someone else to intimidate Eric, but authorities said in court they thought that would have been too difficult considering the fact that Paul had been kept under that lockdown status most of the time. The suggestion that perhaps Paul was trying to threaten witnesses against him, though, certainly wasn't out of the realm of possibility. According to another article by Kimberly Bolander, Lori Smith had also reportedly been threatened after taking her plea deal. She claimed Paul had tried to intimidate her via letter and another inmate had verbally threatened her to keep her mouth shut. Despite all this, though, Paul's trial was scheduled for April 2001, nearly three years after the crime. But due to a higher-than-normal death penalty caseload for defense attorneys in Shasta County, it didn't officially mean until the summer of 2002. During that time, his co-defendants, Lori and Eric, remained in custody but were not scheduled to be sentenced until they testified against Paul. It took several weeks for a jury to be convened, and while Paul waited for that to happen, he did something that I think speaks volumes to who he is as a person and violent criminal. He and another Shasta County jail inmate who was on trial for an unrelated double murder jumped a 23-year-old guard and beat him so severely that he ended up in critical condition with a fractured jaw and skull. The guard had been doing his routine nightly rounds on the third floor of the jail when Paul and the other inmates somehow managed to get out of their cells, hide in a small shower stall, and attack him as he was exiting a series of secure doors. Jail officials told the press that they suspected the assault was the inmate's attempt to escape, but it failed. And as a result, Paul and his accomplice ended up getting indicted for attempted murder and attempting to escape custody. The guard they attacked recovered from his injuries and returned to work as a law enforcement officer, despite undergoing jaw reconstruction surgery. When Paul's trial began in July 2002, his defense attorney presented a, we'll call it, unique defense. He said that Paul had been under the influence of substances on the night Laura Sinner was killed, so much so he'd been passed out when the actual murder occurred. According to Paul and his attorney, it was Paul's half-sister, Lori, who'd delivered the deadly blows that killed Laura. He claimed he'd simply tried to end Laura's suffering when he realized what his then-girlfriend and sibling had done. Amy, who was 18 by the time Paul's trial got underway, testified against him and told the court that she saw Paul put a large bag over Laura's head and heard him deliver two blows that sounded deadly. When Lori Smith took the stand to testify against her half-brother, she told jurors that Paul had explicitly threatened everyone in the friend group after the crime, that he would kill them if they didn't help in the coverup or if they talked to anyone about what they'd done to Laura. After Lori testified, Eric Rubio took the stand too, and his account of the night Laura was murdered was similar to the Young Women's version of events. So prosecutors knew they had a strong case. They had all the co-defendants testifying against Paul, plus video admissions he'd made to detectives shortly after his arrest, where he straight-up said he killed Laura. On Friday, August 23rd, 2002, the jury began an investigation began to deliberate, and by the following Wednesday, day, they found him guilty on all counts. Because he was facing the death penalty, the sentencing phase of Paul's trial was different from the rest of his co-defendants. Between September and October 2002, the court allowed both sides to make arguments for and against capital punishment. Prosecutors wanted to show jurors that Paul had a significant criminal history dating back to when he was 12 years old and suggested the totality of his violent actions throughout his life merited him receiving the death penalty. They, of course, brought up his most recent offense of nearly beating to death the Shasta County Jail Guard, which, you know, didn't do Paul any favors. Especially when that guard showed up and testified on the witness stand about what Paul and his accomplice had done to him. On November 5th, 2002, jurors ultimately decided to send Paul to California's death row at what was then known as San Quentin State Prison. After he was sentenced, Laura's brother, Ryan, told the judge who presided over the hearing that before Laura's murder, they'd made memories together going camping and sharing stories around a campfire. But after her death, he said, quote, I've lost that. I don't think I'll ever be able to go camping again, end quote. In May 2004, Paul went to trial for attempted murder and attempted escape in the jail guard case. And in June of that year, a jury convicted him of those offenses. He was sentenced to life in prison on top of the death sentence he was already serving. During that time, Lori and Eric were formally sentenced to 25 years to life and 18 years to life, respectively. More than a decade later, in April 2015, after Paul appealed his death sentence, the California Supreme Court affirmed his conviction for murder, but amended his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. That decision came after California's high court determined he had not received a proper sentencing trial. Apparently, during that phase of his case, the presiding judge had denied a record of his death sentence. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Paul's defense attorney to call an expert witness to the stand. So, a technicality, essentially. Presently, Paul is still incarcerated at a California state prison. According to coverage by Oxygen, Amy was released from prison in 2009, Eric received parole in 2015, and Lori got out in 2021. Tim Smith, Laura Sinner's former boyfriend, was never charged in relation to the crime and was never implicated of being involved in what happened. Laura's brothers told producers for Murder Among Friends that they think of their sister often. Jason stated that he goes about living his life telling himself that Laura is just permanently away on vacation somewhere. It's how he's coped with her absence. Her brother Ryan told the program that what happened to Laura was a tragedy, and one takeaway he imparted to viewers was to know who your friends are. Something that I found myself thinking about a lot while researching the case was how so many people in this story made the wrong decisions. They had ample opportunities to put a stop to Laura's suffering, but they chose not to. There were also other people who could have intervened too, but they either didn't out of fear or because they didn't pick up on the cues that, in hindsight, maybe they should have. For example, I read in the coverage that a man testified at one of the preliminary hearings early on in this case that he'd encountered the friend group before the murder, and Laura was still alive at the time. This witness told the court that he worked as a caretaker for the property in the Trinity Alps that the friends were camping in. While surveying the woods, he said Laura, who he saw wearing damp clothing and complained of being cold, approached him claiming she needed help because her friends had stolen her car and money. During that interaction, Paul Smith had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and pulled Laura to the side to speak with her. At some point, this witness said Laura had started crying and then retracted her request for him to take her into town. After that, this witness said he got pretty intimidated by Paul's aggressive behavior and so he just left. Unfortunately, he never contacted authorities about what he'd experienced or seen. It's heartbreaking that this witness didn't know what he didn't know at the time. His recollection should serve as a reminder to all of us to trust our gut instinct if it's telling us something is off. We should all stay just a little more vigilant because, who knows, it could just save someone's life.