Police: Dept. of Corrections worker planned husband's murder with inmates
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A Port Orchard woman accused of plotting to hire hit men to kill her husband cried and shouted she was innocent as a judge ordered her held on $1 million bail.
“But I didn’t do it!” shouted Heidi Smith, 57.
Smith’s husband Gary, 68, died in March 2014 after years of health problems. At the time of his death, investigators said his daughter contacted them saying she suspected his widow may have been responsible.
“They were encouraged by family members to look into the death,” said Kitsap County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ken Dickinson. “She had some concerns about the man’s wife.”
An autopsy showed Smith had overdosed on a combination of drugs. A yearlong investigation uncovered a Port Orchard police report from 2008 alleging Smith talked to two inmates at a work release facility where she was employed about killing her husband.
According to a probable cause affidavit Smith talked about wanting her husband taken care of after the two got out, claiming she asked them where they could get a gun and talked about poisoning and baseball bats.
One of the inmates refused to take part and went to police reporting the alleged murder for hire plot saying he was sure Smith wanted her husband murdered so she could collect his life insurance.
“Her statement to one of them was that he had had a large life insurance policy and that he was worth more dead than alive,” said Dickinson. But there wasn’t enough evidence at the time to file criminal charges.
Smith was booked on suspicion of first degree murder by solicitation on Tuesday.
Dickinson said it’s still not clear who gave Gary Smith the fatal overdose.
