Hot Springs police hunt for teen missing 25 years

LITTLE ROCK — Search teams with cadaver dogs combed three wooded areas in Hot Springs for six hours Tuesday, hoping to find remains or clues in the 25-year-old disappearance of Jeffery Lynn Smith, a teenage girl who vanished while walking home from school.

After the search, Hot Springs Police Sgt. Jeff Michau said the department wouldn’t release information about what was or wasn’t found because investigators didn’t want people tromping through the searched areas.

Police interviews connected the search areas to a person who officers suspect was involved in Smith’s disappearance on Dec. 4, 1985, but authorities are not releasing that suspect’s name, Michau said.

“We just want to be real careful what we put out,” he explained.

Each of the three areas is heavily wooded, about as big as a city block and bordered by Cypress Street on the east side of the city, Michau said.

Investigators and Smith’s family want anyone with information about the missing 16-year-old’s case to step forward.

For years, Hot Springs police believed that Smith had run away from home. Her family did not share that theory.

Then about five years ago, police reopened the case after talking to Smith’s sister, Lisa Murray, who had begun her own investigation into what happened to her sister.

“I worked very hard to get her case reopened. It had been a cold case for many years,” Murray said Tuesday from her office in Pennsylvania. “It was just a matter in my gut of me knowing justice had not been served. My sister deserved more.”

Missing kids Jeffery Lynn Smith page

Michau said Smith’s case is classified as a missing-persons case and that investigators believe “there was a crime related to her disappearance.”

Murray said she believes her sister is dead.

“It’s a hard thing to comprehend but ... it all points to the fact that she did not come home that night because she met her demise,” she said.

Murray said when Smith disappeared that her sister was a quiet and unassuming girl who did well in school and dreamed of being a gymnast. She had a boyfriend for about a year who was three years older than she was.

You Tube channel "My Missing Sister"

Through research and interviews of her own, Murray said, she found that the original investigation into her sister’s disappearance wasn’t thorough. She said it “glossed over” that someone Smith knew well had pawned her beloved birthstone ring after she disappeared.

Murray began interviewing women who had dated the man whom the family suspected of being involved in her sister’s disappearance. She ultimately presented those interviews to Hot Springs police.

Murray said she felt that the fact that her sister was black played a role in how her case was investigated in 1985. Now, however, she said that doesn’t seem to be an issue.

“I do see a change in the tide, and there is definitely compassionate and dedicated individuals there,” Murray said. “I’m just glad we are finally getting the help that we need.”