In late spring 1985, 17-year-old Sharon Faye Shari Smith was abducted from the driveway of her Lexington County, South Carolina home on May 31, just days before her scheduled high school graduation. Her father was only yards away when she was taken. The family then received a series of taunting phone calls from the abductor; a letter later arrived in Shari’s own handwriting, written under duress and presented as her last will and testament.

Investigators followed leads from the calls and from an indentation of a partial phone number on the paper Shari used to write the will. That clue and other forensic evidence led to the identification and arrest of Larry Gene Bell on June 27, 1985. Shari’s body was located in Saluda County; she had been suffocated. Bell was also linked to the abduction and murder of 9-year-old Debra May Helmick, whose abduction occurred on June 14, 1985.

Bell was tried, convicted of Shari Smith’s kidnapping and murder, and sentenced to death; he was also convicted in the Helmick case. After appeals, Bell was executed on October 4, 1996. Does anyone have information about Shari’s last days or the phone calls that helped lead to Bell’s arrest?