A Durham Staircase & the Transy Book Heist

Brandi starts us off with a story about a staircase in Durhan, North Carolina. To clarify: That’s a staircase in Durham – not the staircase in Durham. Turns out, there’s more than one staircase in Durham. Hmm. 

It was January of 2007, and Corey Smith was on his way to work when he spotted a woman lying at the base of a staircase near his apartment. The woman was unresponsive, so he called 911. He checked her ID and learned that her name was Denita Smith. Denita was working on her master’s degree at North Carolina Central University. She’d recently completed a prestigious fellowship with the New York Times. She had no known enemies, and yet, someone had killed her. 

Then Kristin tells a story that’s so stupid it’s delightful. (Unless you ask Brandi. Brandi is very anti-heist.) During a tour of the special collections library at Transylvania University, freshman Spencer Reinhard perked up when the tour guide showed off the library’s set of John Hames Audubon’s “Birds of America.” The librarian told the group that a set had recently sold for $12 million. Spencer was intrigued. The special collections room evidently held valuable books, guarded by almost no security.  

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

“Majoring in Crime,” by John Falk for Vanity Fair

“Secrets of the Transy Book Heist,” episode of Super Heists

“Four charged in Transy book heist,” by Andy Mead and Cassondra Kirby for the Lexington Herald-Leader

“Librarian: Emotional scars remain,” by Beth Musgrave for the Lexington Herald-Leader

“Wrong-way gang,” by Gary Thompson for the Philadelphia Inquirer

“Transy thieves took names from film,” by Beth Musgrave for the Lexington Herald-Leader

“College caper appeal backfires, robbers to get even more time,” by Martha Neil for the ABA Journal

“Sentence stands in Transy book theft,” by Brandon Ortiz for the Lexington Herald-Leader

“Internal Affairs” episode Dateline

“Shannon Crawley” episode Snapped

“Denita Smith” chillingcrimes.com

“Shannon Elizabeth Crawley” murderpedia.org

“State of North Carolina v. Shannon Elizabeth Crawley” findlaw.com

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