Let’s begin at the beginning:
She was 41. He was 32.
They flirted over the Internet. He sent online kisses and declared her “hot.” She thanked him for his patience with her.
Jeff Easley moved into Tina Smith’s house . . . a few months ago, a neighbor said.
Their love story dissolved [Dec. 6] with a terrible discovery. A co-worker found Tina Smith slain in her home . . . Her 12-year-old daughter, Brittany Mae Smith, was gone, presumed abducted by Easley and “in extreme danger,” according to a state police Amber Alert.
Mother and daughter were last seen alive [Dec. 3], police said.
The lonely single mother meets the online boyfriend, and doesn’t spot the warning signs:
One neighbor said she’d seen Easley with Brittany, and it made her uneasy.
“This guy gives me the creeps,” said Roxann Pille. “Just the way he touches her, just the way he looks at her, gives me a very uneasy feeling.”
Easley’s MySpace page . . . pictures him with Brittany. Both are grinning broadly.
Brittany’s MySpace page lists her age as 18. Her MySpace and Facebook pages use the last name Easley.
Brittany is a seventh-grader at Glenvar Middle School.
There were other clues:
Brittany, her mother and Easley were active users of Facebook and MySpace, commenting on one another’s postings and noting the ups and downs of life almost every day to their circle of online friends. . . .
Tina Smith’s Facebook had this ominous message the day she died:
“God please protect us from the evils of this world.”
The next day, Easley’s MySpace status was updated, saying, “Got a lot on my mind.”
One of Brittany’s friends, Nicki Mullins, said Brittany didn’t feel comfortable around Easley. Another said she was scared of him. . . .
Brittany’s grandmother, Liz Dyer, wouldn’t discuss what she thought of Easley when she met him at Thanksgiving dinner. Ask social services, she told a reporter.
“They know what I think of him,” she said before hanging up abruptly.
A seventh-grade girl’s mother was killed, presumably by the man who abducted the girl and took her to California, where Brittany was found alive after a five-day national manhunt:
Virginia police detectives talked Sunday for the first time with a 12-year-old Virginia girl and the man who allegedly kidnapped her and has been deemed a prime suspect in her mother’s death.
Roanoke County police Detective John McPhail said that Sunday morning he and three colleagues discussed the death of 41-year-old Tina Smith with Jeffrey Scott Easley, currently in police custody in San Francisco, California, on warrants for abduction, credit card theft and credit card fraud.
While police are investigating Tina Smith’s death as a homicide, they have not said how she died.
They also talked with Brittany Mae Smith, Tina’s daughter, who police had been searching for since Monday. McPhail said the girl “will be heading back to Roanoke soon,” but did not disclose when exactly that might happen. . . .
Roanoke County Police Chief Ray Lavinder said Saturday that Easley is a “very good suspect” in the death of Tina Smith — his girlfriend and Brittany’s mother — who was found dead inside her Salem, Virginia, home last Monday.
Tina Smith and her daughter were evidently victims of one vicious man, but they were also victims of a trend. I’ve often said that the most dangerous man in the world is “mom’s boyfriend.” This is a fact abundantly evident from research. The epidemic of divorce and out-of-wedlock births has exponentially increased the risk to children, especially girls. Continue reading Brittany Smith Found Alive, Police Say Jeffrey Scott Easley ‘Very Good Suspect’ in Death of 12-Year Old Girl’s Mother →
