Chapter Thirteen
Meanwhile, back in Sunrise, Florida, all had not been going too well for Special Agent Mark Putnam. Kathy Putnam later told a reporter that he had had diarrhea for a year. She said in the middle of the night Mark would dig and scratch at his chest, and when she shook him, he’d awake, in terror, asking, “What did I say?”
While on assignment for the FBI, Putnam would find himself driving at a hundred miles per hour, his mind a blur. His mental anguish was interfering with his work, and reportedly, in the middle of interviewing a suspect, Putnam got so overwrought he was unable to complete his line of questioning. Still, no one at the FBI Miami office suspected anything was wrong with Putnam, and no one there had been made aware of the Susan Smith case.
The FBI investigative team did not want to be-lievethat Putnam was capable of committing murder, so they were careful not to expose him.
“Who’s going to believe an FBI agent killed an informant? I was astounded when I heard that,” Huggins later said. “Based on Susan Smith’s background, we all thought it was a bunch of nonsense at first, but when it all ended up in my lap on May 7, I told the guys I selected for this thing, you know you’re investigating a fellow agent, but put that all aside, guys. treat it just like a routine case. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”
On May 16 Agent Jim Huggins, Detective Richard Ray, and Lieutenant Paul Maynard boarded an airplane in Lexington and flew down to interview Mark Putnam at the Miami FBI office. Until the interview held that day, Huggins maintained all the investigators had were allegations about Putnam’s affair with Susan and his possible involvement in her disappearance. They could not accuse an FBI agent without concrete evidence, without a body, without a witness. They were still working on a missing person case, and the profile they had on Susan Smith seemed to indicate that she was capable of just running off to another state. She had done this in the past.
As Huggins readied himself for the interview with Putnam, he kept in mind that Putnam might refuse to cooperate. If that happened the case would probably remain unsolved, he knew.
But Putnam agreed to talk, and during the six and a half hour interview with Huggins and members of the KSP, the FBI man detailed his moves in Pikeville during June of 1989. Going through the three-week time period almost minute by minute, Putnam tried to itemize everything he’d done.
One of the questions Huggins asked right off the bat was why Putnam had chosen to fly into Huntington, West Virginia, rather than Lexington, Kentucky, since he had a meeting with Tom Self in Lexington. Putnam explained that the Huntington airport was closer to Pikeville, where the chop shop trial was being held, and that answer satisfied Huggins.
Though he knew Putnam had had meetings with Self in Lexington almost every day, and landing at Lexington would probably have made more sense, Huggins said he never gave that issue a second thought. Then, when Putnam went on to explain that he was staying in Pikeville rather than Lexington because of the trial, maintaining that it was easier to travel to Lexington to see Self and then return to Pikeville for the trial, that also made sense to Agent Huggins.
“An FBI agent often drives back and forth on an official assignment. He’d think nothing of a two and a half hour trip,” Huggins explained. “If Putnam had changed his lodging to Lexington, there would be a lot of paper work involved — voucher problems — and the trial was going to be held in Pikeville, so I had no problem with that.”
“I tried as hard as I could to remain strictly down the line on this,” Huggins said. “I didn’t want to lean in his favor because he was an FBI agent. I just let him tell his story, and the story didn’t completely conflict with what I knew. I didn’t get the truth out of him. Not the first time.”
Jim Huggins said his manner of questioning was not confrontational. He did not query Putnam sharply. A seasoned FBI man, Huggins knew he had to remain in control, had to maintain neutrality, superiority, and certainty. But he also had to be supportive, he had to keep a line of communication flowing. If Putnam was put on the defensive, he might restrict the information he provided or refuse to talk.
On May 16, 1990, Putnam denied having anything to do with Susan Smith outside of work. However, he did divulge certain information about the rental car he was driving, explaining that it had been damaged and had been turned back in. That revelation came as a surprise to Lieutenant Maynard, who had assumed that Putnam had been driving a “Bureau car” in June of 1989. Maynard had not been privy to the results of the FBI team’s “homework” on the rental car.
And as the interview progressed, Putnam told his questioners something that no one in the FBI or the Kentucky State Police had known. He mentioned that he’d cut his hand on a shelf nail in the garage at his old residence in Pikeville, then said there would be blood in the rental car due to that injury. Putnam had no way of knowing whether blood had yet been discovered in the car by the FBI lab. The agent had fallen into the same trap that catches many criminals: he’d presumed the authorities knew more about his crime than they did.
But even as his story started sounding more and more deceptive, as discrepancies and new details appeared, Mark appeared relaxed, all along denying any connection with Susan Smith’s disappearance.
Putnam was being too cool about the whole matter, Agent Huggins thought. He wasn’t reacting the way an innocent man should.
“If someone comes in and accuses me of murder, I’m going to be saying, Hey, you gotta be crazy! But he didn’t do that. He didn’t yell or get upset. He just said, 
No, I didn’t do it.’ ”
No, I didn’t do it.’ ”Then, just before the interview was over, Putnam was shown the green shorts Shelby Ward had given the police. He said they were probably his, that he had a pair like them. Then he said he would let the police know whether he would take a polygraph.
On the flight back, Richard Ray sat silently, amazed that Putnam had been able to recall in such detail events, supposedly routine, that had taken place almost a year before. Like Huggins, Ray believed Putnam had been just too calm and nonchalant about being investigated as a possible murder suspect. Furthermore, instinct told him that much of Putnam’s information was misleading and contrived.
“Most people don’t remember what they did last week, but here Putnam was telling us things, one thing after another, about what happened back a year ago. It was branded in his brain some way. Like it was rehearsed,” Ray said. “After listening to the story during that six and a half hour interview, I learned a lot that I didn’t know before. I never got to talk to him after that initial time when Susan was reported missing in June of 1989. And now [after the May 16th interview], even though he was still professional and businesslike, I kind of decided that he wasn’t being truthful.”
On May 17, 1990, after the three lawmen returned to Lexington, Huggins made the two and a half-hour drive back to Pikeville with Paul Maynard and Richard Ray.
Later that day, they interviewed a local professional woman who claimed to be a friend of Putnam’s. She said she knew Susan Smith had worked with Putnam on a bank robbery case, and she told the team that she and Putnam had spent time together from eight P.M. until three A.M. either Friday, June 9, or Saturday, June 10, 1989. But she wasn’t sure which night it was.
The next day, on May 18, 1990, Huggins made a second trip down to Miami. After a brief interview, he asked Agent Putnam to make a trip with him to FBI headquarters in Washington.
“I’ve got a problem with two or three things you’re telling me, and you’re the only one that knows if you’re telling the truth. I would like you to take a polygraph to satisfy me.”
Even though the FBI has no legal right to force an employee to take a polygraph, it is safe to assume that refusal might have been deemed suspicious. Besides, Putnam’s job was now on the line because of the repeated allegations that he had slept with a federal witness who was an FBI informant. According to Huggins, if Putnam hadn’t openly admitted to the affair, an internal inquiry would have been conducted and Putnam’s sexual misconduct would have been proven sooner or later, so Putnam was just days away from being removed from the Bureau in any case. “He was in serious violation of Bureau rules. His job was absolutely at stake, he should have known that,” Huggins said.
The only possible source of evidence was the rental car. Putnam was informed that the FBI lab in Washington was evaluating the Ford Tempo and that it might yield traces of blood, fibers from clothing, and other evidence of foul play.
It was on the eve of Friday, May 18, that Putnam agreed to take a polygraph, and before he left Florida with Huggins, he called Kathy to tell her there might be a problem about something he had done in Pikeville. His wife was already aware of the allegation that Mark had gotten Susan pregnant, so the call didn’t come as a complete surprise. But Kathy didn’t believe Mark was guilty of anything. In fact, when Shelby Ward had called Terry Hulse to report the affair in June, 1989, Kathy Putnam had been infuriated that anyone might insinuate her husband was capable of such an indiscretion.
Putnam and Huggins flew to Washington, D.C., that same night, and early the next morning, Huggins escorted Putnam to FBI headquarters.
Special Agent Mark Putnam failed the polygraph.
Kentucky State Police and the FBI were angry about having been manipulated by him, but there was nothing they could do. Everything would now land in the Pike County prosecutor’s lap.
When Mark returned home on the night of May 20, 1990, his wife picked him up at the airport in Fort Lauderdale at midnight, and they drove to the bar at the local Holiday Inn. It was a quiet place called David’s Plum, which they had often frequented. They did not speak at all on the way there. Kathy was preparing herself for an admission of an affair with Susan Smith. She had already thought that over and had decided that she would forgive him.
When they got to their table, Mark sat in silence. Kathy ordered a double Black Russian. It came to her that he might have harmed Susan, and she wanted to get that issue cleared up right away.
“Okay, did you killer her?” she blurted out.
“Yeah, I did,” Mark replied, his words not yet registering with his wife.
“You slept with her?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“This could have been your baby?”
“Yeah.”
In a rage, Kathy slapped Mark so severely across the face that she knocked him out of his chair. She then downed her drink and the pair left, Mark telling her that he would have to hire an attorney first thing Monday morning.
On Monday, May 22, after contacting a lawyer in Fort Lauderdale, Putnam resigned from the FBI. That same day, Commonwealth Attorney Runyon got a call from Bruce Zimet, the lawyer Putnam had engaged.
Runyon was dumbfounded. “We had absolutely no evidence. Not one scintilla or shred. It was the first time in my twenty-eight-year career that I had a man wanting to confess to murder and I could not charge him for it,” Runyon stated. He later insisted that Putnam could have gotten away with his crime if his attorney had advised him to keep his mouth shut.
“John Paul, I want to talk to you, but I need to invoke Rule Eleven of Criminal Procedure,” Zimet had said the moment Runyon picked up the phone. That meant Runyon, a prosecutor, had to agree not to use anything said in the conversation in a court of law, and he did so.
“Initially Zimet talked hypothetically,” Runyon later told reporters, “saying what if this had happened, what if that had happened, and finally I said, ‘Look, if we’re going to do this thing let’s lay it on the table.’ ”
So Zimet started talking about manslaughter, and Runyon agreed that the facts pretty well fit that charge. It was not a cold-blooded premeditated murder, the way Zimet put it; emotion was involved. Susan Smith had backed Mark Putnam into a corner, and he had killed her during an argument, in a fit of rage.
Over a period of three weeks, Zimet and Runyon negotiated a plea bargain. During this time US Attorney Louise De Falaise and officers from the Kentucky State Police listened in on the talks, sitting in Runyon’s library as Zimet’s voice emanated from a speaker phone. Toward the end of the negotiations, Runyon had everyone convinced that there was no other choice but to allow Putnam to plead to manslaughter. He could not be convicted of murder without a body, and no one knew what Putnam had done with her. Susan Smith might have been hidden anywhere in Pike County.
Runyon knew he could bring in five thousand members of the Army reserve to comb the hills for a week and still not find the body of Susan Smith. Putnam knew that too. He had been around when scores of police had dug up the area for months, looking for the body of the informant Russell Davis.
Major Jerry Lovitt was also privy to the weeks of negotiations and the problems facing the Pike County prosecutor on this case. Putnam was skilled enough to cover his tracks. No one in the FBI or the local law enforcement agency could find any kind of evidence that would hold up in court. Even with an admission of manslaughter, there would be no case unless Putnam led police to Susan Smith’s bones.
During the period from May 22 to June 2, 1990, Runyon kept the FBI informed on the progress of the negotiations with Zimet, and in the meanwhile, FBI agents continued their investigation. On May 24, the agents picked up copies of Susan Smith’s records from the Williamson Memorial Hospital. These recorded her blood type.
That same day, Special Agent Andrew Sluss went to the News Express in Pikeville. Mark Putnam had stated that he had viewed Roadhouse at the local movie house on June 9, 1989. Sluss checked the local paper and discovered that Roadhouse and Pink Cadillac were showing until June 8, 1989. On June 9, the movies had switched to Final Frontier, and See No Evil.
On June 1, Agents Sam Smith and Tim Adams went to Putnam’s former residence on Honeysuckle Drive and inspected the shelves and paint cans in what used to be Putnam’s garage. They were told by the home’s new owner, Mrs. Bolton, that the shelves had remained untouched since she had moved into the house. The FBI agents found no nails or sharp objects on them that would cut a hand, nor could they locate any blood splatters around the shelf area.
Meanwhile, the negotiations between Runyon and Zimet were becoming heated. Zimet called at one point and said Putnam would take twelve years. Runyon said he would take no less than sixteen and hung up.
“We selectively analyzed this thing,” Runyon said. “I did the plea bargaining, and I told Mr. Putnam’s attorney, on the telephone, that I couldn’t sleep with less than sixteen years – I tell you, we were taking bets that Putnam would back out, but he didn’t.”
The bargaining went back and forth for days until Zimet called back and finally agreed to the sixteen-year plea bargain.
On June 4, 1990, Special Agent Jim Huggins and Lieutenant Paul Maynard flew down to Miami to witness the statement Putnam was to make in the presence of his attorney. This sworn confession would later be used in the court case against him.
By the time they got to Zimet’s Ford Lauderdale office, it was already beginning to grow dark outside. At eight P.M. Huggins asked Putnam to disclose the whereabouts of Susan Smith’s body before he made his confession, so that FBI agents and Kentucky State Police could locate her. Putnam said he had “placed” Susan Smith down a ravine off Harmon’s Branch, just nine miles outside Pikeville, and he described the exact location where the body could be found. Paul Maynard went into the next room and called the Pikeville post, at which FBI agents and Kentucky State Police were standing by for directions which would lead them to Susan Smith’s remains.
At eight forty-five P.M., FBI agents Smith and Adams, accompanied by State Police Sergeant Fred Davidson and his search dog, Bingo, arrived at Harmon’s Branch and drove up the steep, windy dirt road. Unfortunately, the area where Susan Smith was supposed to have been placed was so heavily overgrown, they could not locate any trace of a corpse. Their bloodhound, Bingo, sniffed around for some time, picking up no scent.
The team searched the area for a full fifteen minutes, standing in the exact location Maynard had given them. They had drawn a map, pinpointing the spot. Despite their specific instructions as to where the body of Susan Smith was, they couldn’t find it. The men, who had gone down over the steep embankment beside the road and into the ravine, were now so covered by trees and brambles, they were hardly visible to the officers on guard above. Bingo, the search dog, could not be seen as he wandered aimlessly in the impenetrable woods.
Just before nightfall, one of the men spotted what he thought was a skull. Down among the briars, the team now uncovered a human skeleton, the rib cage intact, partially concealed by leaves, the arm and leg bones seemingly shifted around, perhaps by wild animals. One of the men picked up the jawbone. It was missing two molar teeth. No flesh was visible on any of the bones, and the body, which appeared to have been thrown or dropped over the edge of the ravine, had rolled or slid until coming up against an old fence that had been heaved down the slope earlier. There were no articles of clothing at the site.
State troopers were left on guard at Harmon’s Branch until the forensic anthropologist, Dr. David Wolfe, arrived from Frankfort.
A gold chain and cross lying next to the skeleton were later identified as jewelry Shelby had lent Susan. This was the only item which positively identified the remains as being those of Susan Daniels Smith.
Back in Fort Lauderdale, on June 4, 1990, Mark Steven Putnam confessed to killing Susan Daniels Smith, becoming the first agent in the eighty-two-year history of the FBI to be charged in a homicide-related offense.
Having been advised of his constitutional rights by Senior Special Agent Huggins, Putnam began reading his sworn statement aloud to Huggins and Maynard. The confession addressed previous statements he had made regarding the disappearance of Susan Smith. These had contained some false information, and Putnam declared, “I now wish to tell the complete truth regarding this matter.”
In accordance with the plea agreement between Putnam and Runyon, the former FBI agent furnished this statement based on assurances that he would not be prosecuted for any false statements he’d made relative to the investigation, and he claimed that prior to Susan’s death, he was “feeling a lot of pressure because of the upcoming trial, the move to Miami, and the constant badgering by Susan over her pregnancy.” All of these were factors that led to his act of uncontrolled rage, Putnam revealed.
In his sworn confession, he said he’d attempted to discuss Susan’s pregnancy with her on several occasions and he’d informed her that once the baby was born, he would take a blood test to determine whether he was in fact the father. But Susan only became hostile and antagonistic whenever the subject was raised. He added that on several occasions he attempted to discuss Susan’s pregnancy with her, and he said he specifically recalled asking Susan whether she should consider an abortion or his providing for the child by adopting the child, but she would entertain neither idea.
According to Putnam’s version of the killing, at about seven P.M. on June 8, 1989, he arrived in Pikeville, having just returned from Lexington where he was working on pretrial matters with Assistant United States Attorney Tom Self. He was driving a blue Ford Tempo, a rented car. At approximately eight-thirty P.M. Susan Smith had started calling his room to complain about his not meeting with her to discuss her pregnancy, and to accuse him of being the father of her child. Then at ten-thirty P.M., Susan went to his room, where she became more vocal and argumentative. Putnam said he told her to “shut up,” and they got into a loud argument. Then he began to fear that other people staying at the motel might overhear their bickering, and he asked Susan to go for a ride with him so they could continue the discussion.
When they got into Putnam’s rental car, they drove around the Pikeville area and then headed out into the eastern end of Pike County, in the vicinity of Phelps.
“All during the drive, we discussed the pregnancy issue and I kept asking Susan what she wanted me to do,” Putnam stated. “She would never give me a specific answer, but kept telling me the baby was mine and she was going to ‘hang me’ over that. She said she would tell the FBI, my family, and the newspapers. I was getting extremely uptight.”
The argument continued, and at approximately midnight, Putnam claims he parked his car near the top of Peter Creek Mountain, not far from Susan’s home. At that point in their conversation, he told her that he and his wife Kathy would adopt the baby if it was his, saying he could give the baby a much better home than she could.
“I told her that if custody were to be decided in court, the court would definitely rule in my favor because of her background,” Putnam admitted, adding that Susan then became enraged and he, in an act of anger, slammed his right hand “into the dashboard or the console,” cutting it so it bled.
“At this time Susan started striking me with her hands in a slapping-type motion,” Putnam continued. “And in an act of extreme rage, I reached across the car and grabbed her by the throat with both hands. I straddled her, actually sitting on top of her in the seat.”
Putnam said he then started choking Susan, again telling her to “shut up.” He estimated that he choked her for approximately two minutes, during which time “Susan continued to struggle and strike me about the face.” During this struggle, Putnam guessed that Susan’s feet were positioned against the passenger-side windshield, which he later noticed was cracked. “I believed she had done this during the struggle,” he asserted.
After Susan ceased struggling, Putnam relaxed his grip, assuming she was unconscious. He then checked for a pulse, and finding none, he began to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation techniques. He even took his fist and hit her chest in an attempt to get her breathing again, but with no success. Susan did not move.
In a state of panic, Putnam exited by the door on the driver’s side and removed Susan from the passenger side of the vehicle. He said he was feeling faint and she “felt extremely heavy to me.” He sat her on the ground, propping her up against his legs, but when he released his grip, she fell to the side, her head striking the ground with a “thud.” At this point, Putnam said, he decided that Susan was dead.
“Realizing she was wearing my clothing, which was a pair of gray casual shorts with two long pockets in the front and a gray pullover gym shirt I had given her earlier in the week, I removed the clothing from her body,” Putnam said. He told police that he later disposed of the items in a trash receptacle at the Landmark Inn.
Putnam then placed Susan’s body in the trunk of the rental car and drove back to the Landmark Inn in Pikeville. It was approximately two-thirty A.M. when he parked in the lot. He went directly to his room and took a shower. He then went to the Super America Market, located across the street from the Landmark, and purchased some Band-Aids and medicine to apply to his hand. When he returned to his room he was “extremely scared and nervous and did not know what to do.”
Putnam maintained that he sat up for the rest of the night, and then at six-thirty or seven A.M., after taking another shower, he departed for Lexington to meet with Tom Self for a pretrial conference. Susan’s body remained in the trunk during this time, Putnam said, and upon his arrival in Lexington, he parked the rental car in front of the Lexington courthouse, where it remained for the rest of the day.
According to his statement, Putnam said he left Lexington at about five P.M., arriving in Pikeville around seven P.M. at which time he went to McDonald’s and had something to drink. He then started the grim journey to dispose of the body.
He proceeded north on US 23 to Harmon’s Branch Road, nine miles outside of Pikeville, and after driving a short distance on Harmon’s Branch, Putnam found a turnoff at the left side of the road. He backed his vehicle into it and removed Susan’s body from the trunk.
“I then proceeded to place the body in a small ravine and laid Susan on her back,” Putnam stated, adding, “There were some weeds and undergrowth, and I thought someone would find her.” Susan was nude, and after he had put her down, Putnam said he sat beside her for a minute and then “kissed her on the cheek.”
Before he got to the top of the mountain, Putnam said he passed a man who looked at him very closely. The man was standing in his yard and appeared to be in his fifties. Putnam stated that while he was placing Susan’s body in the ravine, he’d heard dirt bikes in the area, and that when he got back into his car and sat there for a few minutes, he observed a girl riding by on a horse. She’d looked at him and ridden on.
He left Harmon’s Branch and went back to the Landmark, certain that “Susan’s body would be found in a short period of time.”
Later that evening, Putnam said, he called his wife and was so tired that he “went to sleep during the conversation.”
He swore that he was not aware of any witnesses to his and Susan’s departure from the Landmark on June 8, and he further stated that he did not have his weapon with him when he left the motel and he did not shoot Susan. He added that Susan did not have any type of weapon with her.
“At the time of the altercation,” Putnam continued, “neither Susan nor I were under the influence of any drugs or alcohol. No other person was aware of, nor did anyone else participate in, the death of Susan Smith. Also, I never told anyone else about the particulars of Susan’s death and I never returned to the location of the body.”
Putnam then admitted to first having sexual intercourse with Susan Smith in December, 1988. From that time until the time of her death, he said he had had intercourse with her “approximately four to five times.” He admitted the baby Susan was carrying at the time of her death could have been his child, because “I never used birth control during intercourse with Susan.”
Putnam claimed that Susan never mentioned a previous pregnancy or miscarriage to him. He further stated that the times he had had sex with her, it was always in the car, never at his house or at a motel, and he denied having sexual relations with her during the days prior to her death. He insisted that he was trying to avoid her that entire week.
Putnam then retracted an earlier statement he had made to investigators regarding Susan’s meeting with a group from Illinois on a drug deal, stating that it was false information.
In the remainder of his confession, Putnam told law enforcement how he went about cleaning up the scene of the crime, explaining that on Saturday, June 10, 1989, after he went to serve a subpoena in the nearby town of Salyersville, Kentucky, he returned to Pikeville at about ten A.M. and went to the One Stop Car Wash, where he vacuumed out the rental car. While he was cleaning it out, he noticed an earring “of which I did not know the origin,” so he vacuumed it up. Putnam also bought some liquid cleaner and water, and removed the blood from the interior of the vehicle.
Also on Saturday – Putnam said he could not recall the exact time – he removed the mat from the trunk of the car and discarded it on the microwave-tower access road, adjacent to the jogging track at the Bob Amos Park in Pikeville. He did that, Putnam said, because when he took Susan’s body out of the trunk to place it in the ravine, he noticed some human “discharge” on the mat, “apparently from Susan’s mouth.”
Sometime in the afternoon on that Saturday, Putnam claimed, he drove to his old neighborhood on Honeysuckle Drive, stopping by his former residence and then visiting Celia Fish, who had been his neighbor. Putnam stated that one of Celia’s children noticed a cut on his hand, and he explained to the child that he had injured it on a nail in his garage. Fish, a registered nurse, later told police that she did see Putnam that evening, but neither she nor her children noticed a bandage or cut on either of Putnam’s hands.
It was well into the evening on June 4, 1990, when Putnam finally finished his statement, calmly stating that he had returned to the Landmark the evening after the killing and was engaged in trial activities in Pikeville until June 25, 1989, at which time he departed for Miami.
“Putnam’s confession was orchestrated,” Major Lovitt of the KSP said in retrospect. “Putnam was playing out his hand of cards, and he did it very skillfully. He knew exactly what the system’s weaknesses were.
“He knew there was some pressure to solve this case. He knew we didn’t have a damn thing on him, and he knew what cards we had, so there was no bluffing. We couldn’t use any of the usual lines. . . . Intimidation was taken out of our hands and put into his. Then he ran us back and forth to Miami two and three times. We were thinking this guy is crooked, he’s a law officer, he’s killed a person, and he’s not going to get away with that.”