‘Bloody $100 bills’ in court today in Adam Smith murder case

CANTON. The trial in the double murder of Adam Smith took another twist on Oct. 29 when a former Dollar General store manager testified that she received “bloody $100 bills” from Smith on the day Ronald “Huck” Durham was killed.

Smith is accused of murdering Durham on February 11, 2023, and William Freeman on March 2, 2023.

Former Dollar General Store Manager Talks About ‘Bloody Bills’

Former Sandy Creek Dollar General store manager Patricia Lee came forward on Oct. 29 to detail her Feb. 11 encounter with Smith.

According to Lee, Smith came to the store around 1 p.m. and bought two Apple Pay cards with $500 in cash, each for $100.

She said that when he handed her the cash, blood “about an inch wide” was visible on each bio.

Lee said Smith purchased the cards at 1:02 p.m., as shown on video from the store along with a receipt for the transaction, which was presented in court.

Five minutes later, Smith reappeared in the frame. This time he bought a USB charger and a Steam card for $100.

Lee said the Steam card is used for the online service to buy games and movies.

Upon entering a second time, Lee said Smith apologized for his earlier behavior when “he looked agitated” because she was not immediately available to cash him.

“He said he was having a bad day because his uncle had just been killed,” she commented.

She said Smith paid again with a $100 bill with the same distinct red stain, which she believed was blood.

Lee said she removed the bills from the cash register seconds later and used hand sanitizer to clean them, noting that Smith made a comment “that he was drawing earlier that day,” but she was convinced it was blood.

She could be seen on camera cleaning the bills with a jug of hand sanitizer near the register.

Lee said another customer, whom she did not know personally, informed her that her husband was a police officer who could check Smith’s license plates. Lee said she wasn’t sure if the buyer ever reported information about Smith to police.

She also said she didn’t call police because she didn’t think much of the exchange after Smith had apologized for his earlier behavior.

Under cross-examination by attorney Brian Barrett, Lee said she did not know where Smith got the money used to buy the cards.

She also confirmed that she was fired from her position at Dollar General in June 2023 due to a “conflict of interest with another store employee.”

Regarding the Smith investigation, Lee said she was interviewed by a state police investigator on March 9. She said the officer was in uniform and had a body camera but did not turn it on during the interview.

In her affidavit, Lee said she confirmed to the police officer that Smith “sounded like he was on the phone with a woman” but was not sure who he was talking to or what.

She also said she didn’t think much of the potential blood on the dollar bills because Smith “could have cut himself or something.”

Cellular specialists say that the phone was in motion

Philip Fanara, an independent contractor for AT&T, also testified on October 29, along with Timothy Gray, a custodian of records for Verizon.

Both Fanara and Gray testified to the validity of records obtained through a subpoena regarding a phone number registered to Smith.

Both witnesses reviewed a number of reports and detailed the findings, including how geolocation information was collected and how it was displayed in the reports.

In both cases, Smith’s phone with a known SIM card was tracked on February 11 and March 2 as being moved.

Fanara said in one case the phone was tracked “virtually every second” for a long period of time, while in another report it was tracked “about every minute.”

In both cases, he said, the phone connected to different AT&T towers as it moved near them.

In most cases, he said, the tracking was accurate “within a few hundred meters, plus or minus,” based on reports admitted into evidence.

In Gray’s case, he testified that the reports he received from Verizon detailed much the same. He also detailed outgoing calls from Smith to another number that was part of the Verizon network.

In a number of cases, the phone call went to voicemail, as detailed in one report and confirmed by Gray.

Gray said that as the custodian of records for Verizon, as Fanara is for AT&T, it is his duty to appear in court and testify in such cases as to the validity of the report and the information contained therein.

He said based on records presented in court, it’s fair to assume the phone Smith allegedly had was also moving on March 2 because it connected to multiple towers over a long period of time.

He said Gray could not confirm the technical details of how the phone would connect to such towers because it did not involve his previous work as a custodian of records.

However, he said the phone was likely moving based on information contained in the reports.

The state police cyber specialist is searching for footage in detail

New York State Police Detective Mark Tatro also spoke on October 29, detailing his work as a member of the computer crimes unit.

Tatro has been with the Computer Crimes Unit since 2006 and has been with Ray Brooke’s office since 2016.

During his testimony, Tatro commented that he was sent to the scene of Durham’s murder on February 11 in Gouverneur. He commented that he went to the murder scene after meeting with Investigator White at the Casablanca restaurant in downtown Gouverneur.

He said after assisting at the scene, he and other investigators worked to obtain surveillance video from nearby homes and businesses for clues as to who may have committed the crime.

According to Tatro, he spent the rest of the day at SP Gouverneur, but noted that he was not there until “extremely late” before returning home that night.

Tatro said he first encountered Leroy Tarrett Jr. at the cemetery, at which point he began taking a statement from him and conducting further surveillance of the area.

He then returned to Gouverneur on Feb. 12 to continue his work, which included reviewing surveillance footage from nearby homes and businesses.

Tatro was then asked about his involvement in viewing surveillance footage from the NY Pizzeria that showed a man on a bicycle shortly after the murder.

He said he was aware of the footage and the individual, but had not viewed the footage himself, nor was he sure if it was footage of the criminal.

Tatro said he got the impression the person in the footage “was an interesting person, but not the person I was interviewing.”

The phone was discovered by a passerby

The reappearance of Durham’s phone was a recurring theme throughout the trial, an element of the story that became clearer after Melissa Ryder’s testimony.

Under cross-examination, Ryder said she found the phone on the bridge on West Main Street in Governor on Feb. 15 when she went to a friend’s house to buy a gram of marijuana.

She said she debated keeping the phone, but instead took the phone to “do a good deed and try to get it back to its rightful owner.”

Ryder said she then tried to start the phone, but it wasn’t charged. She then tried to charge the phone in her sister’s car, but was unable to do so.

After returning home to Oswega, Ryder said she was able to charge her phone to “about 12 to 14 percent.”

Opening the phone, she saw a photo of an “old woman” on the background of the screen.

“I went into the photo gallery and recognized one photo from the obituary I had seen on 7 News. All I remembered was “Huck,” she said.

Ryder said she then tried calling contacts on the phone to see who it might belong to, eventually reaching a contact listed as “RJ.”

She said RJ Durham called her back and told her the phone belonged to Ronald Durham, his uncle who was recently killed in Gouverneur.

Ryder said she immediately put the phone in the freezer and waited for police to come to her home to retrieve the phone.

She said two female police officers came to her home late at night to take possession of the phone and question her about finding the phone.

Ryder said she was also interviewed by SP Gouverneur and gave an affidavit regarding the discovery of the device.

She said she only knew a few minor details that she “heard from my mother who covered the story on 7 News,” but noted that she hadn’t really paid attention to what happened to Durham.

“I just wanted to do a good deed and try to find the owner,” she said.

Surveillance footage from Small Town Supply showed Ryder found the phone on Feb. 15 around 5:13 p.m., right after she visited a friend to buy marijuana.

“I was thinking of leaving it there on the bridge,” she said.

Under cross-examination by attorney Brian Barrett, Ryder detailed her troubled past, which included a 2017 conviction for manufacturing methamphetamine.

Ryder also commented that she was struggling with substance abuse at the time she found Durham’s phone, but was now clean after years of struggling.

“Keep up the good work,” Barrett said.

Adam Smith’s murder trial will continue tomorrow, October 30, at 1:00 p.m. in the St. Lawrence County District Court.