Man who murdered two wives again denied parole

Fred E. Smith

The former Newbern resident who was convicted of murdering his wife after dumping her body on his family's farm in rural Dyer County in 1988 was refused parole this week.

Fred E. Smith, 65, was living in Fayetteville in north central Tennessee in 1988 when he was convicted in a Macon County court of first-degree murder charges. The body of his wife, Kathy Marie Smith, 32, was found in July 1988 by local authorities on a farm southeast of Newbern owned by Smith's grandmother. Her body was found in a ditch, covered by pieces of wood and hay. The reported cause of death was a hammer to the head. Police said they suspected Smith killed his wife in Fayetteville and sought to hide the crime by moving the body to Dyer County.

Smith was sentenced to 50 years in prison for the murder.

Jack Elder, spokesman for the Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole, said only four votes from the board's seven members were required to decide on Smith's parole. The votes were unanimous in declining Smith's request for release.

"We had to have four concurring votes," said Elder. "The last two came in this week."

Smith's parole consideration began Aug. 11.

Voting against Smith were board members Ronnie Cole (former state representative for Dyer County), Larry Hassell, James Austin and board chairman Charles Traughber.

Smith reported in early July 1988 to Fayetteville police that his wife was missing, telling authorities she "had called him at his place of employment and told him she was tired of being a burden and that she was leaving."

Police were immediately suspicious of Smith's story, as Smith in 1977 entered a guilty plea in Sumner County to second-degree murder in the death of his second wife, Doris.

Smith was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison for that conviction. He served 23 months before the sentence was commuted by then-Gov. Ray Blanton in January 1979. Smith's commutation was one of the last 26 signed by Blanton during the last days of his term, actions that prompted the legislature to oust Blanton and allow governor-elect Lamar Alexander to assume office early.

Blanton, who died in 1996, was never charged in connection with allegations of selling pardons to Tennessee inmates.

A parole hearing was held for Smith in February 1979. The five members declined to recommend clemency, but by then Blanton had already acted. However, Smith's sentence was not officially discharged from the Tennessee Department of Correction until June 1979.

Elder said Smith was one of 375 incarcerated offenders whose parole hearings had been deferred by the parole board for more than six years. The state Attorney General ordered the backlog be reduced, and the board began rescheduling hearings in April 2005.

Smith is currently imprisoned near Tiptonville at the Northwest Tennessee Correctional Center. His next parole date is set for August 2011. Smith's end date of the sentence is June 19, 2030.