Lena Regina Smith
Real Name: Lena Regina Smith (at time of broadcast)
Aliases: Little Bit
Wanted For: Manslaughter, Assault, Larceny, Escape
Missing Since: August 27, 1976
Case[]
Details: On July 25, 1970, twenty-four-year-old prostitute Lena Regina Smith stabbed her client, a thirty-three-year-old Boston man named Walter Chize, to death in a Roxbury, Massachusetts apartment. She allegedly bragged about killing him before fleeing town. On August 18, 1971, she was arrested in Port Huron, Michigan, and charged with murder. She later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to eight-to-fifteen years in prison. She had a long criminal record, with previous convictions for prostitution, larceny, and assault.
On August 27, 1976, Smith and another inmate escaped from the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Framingham by swinging a blanket over a fence and scaling a wall. The other inmate was later recaptured, but Smith remains at large. It is believed that she is working as a truck driver and may be traveling with other truck drivers.
Extra Notes:
- The case was featured as a part of an escapee special alert in the February 8, 1989 episode, along with Thomas Nauss Jr., Carl Alfred Eder, and Joseph Mancini.
- It was excluded from the FilmRise release of the Robert Stack episodes.
Results: Captured. Smith's real name was later determined to be Valerie Osborne. On November 24, 1993, she was arrested in Commerce City, Colorado. She was being investigated by authorities for selling stolen vacuum cleaners. Authorities checked a national crime computer and realized that she was a wanted fugitive. When she was arrested, she denied that she was Osborne. However, fingerprints confirmed her identity. She admitted that she had spent her entire time on the run in Colorado. She was returned to Massachusetts and the same prison that she had escaped from seventeen years earlier.
Links:
- Held in slaying - August 19, 1971
- Held In Slaying - Port Huron - August 19, 1971
- Woman Arrested In Murder Case - August 19, 1971
- After 17 years, tip leads police to Framingham escapee in Colo. - November 28, 1993
- Jail escapee caught - November 29, 1993