There's nothing like a person whose charm lights up a room, unless they're a murderous psychopath. I'm Patty Steele. From murderer to media darling and back again. That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back. One of the most dangerous kinds of criminal is the super intellectual and frequently charming psychopath. They charm their victims and others, and because they don't feel any guilt whatsoever, they don't look guilty, so it's kind of easy to get sucked in, at least for a while. Perfect examples include Charles Manson, who charmed his followers into committing vicious murders for him, and Ted Bundy, who would meet young college women joke around with them. Frequently, he'd be wearing some kind of a sling on his arm and he'd ask for help putting something in his car. Then he'd crack him over the head with a tire iron and stuff them in the back seat. Now here's the thing. Sometimes these people are able to convince others, including powerful people, to help them clear their name. That was the case with Edgar Smith and famous writer and TV political commentator William F. Buckley Junior. Back in nineteen fifty seven, when Edgar was a twenty three year old ex marine with a wife and a baby at home. He borrows a friend's car to take a drive. It's a cold winter evening in New Jersey, and he spots fifteen year old Vicky Zelinsky, an honor student and cheerleader at their local high school in Ramsay, New Jersey. She's walking home from a friend's house. Edgar stops. He asks her if she wants a ride, since she knew him from around the neighborhood. She said sure, thank you. He drives her then to an abandoned sand pit and parks the car. She realizes what's happening and she tries to get out, saying she'll walk home. He grabs her and she struggles. Then she yells at him and slap as He claimed he hit her back and then couldn't remember what else happened. Turns out he had beaten her to death with a large rock as well as a baseball bat. The next morning, her parents found her mangled body. Meantime, Edgar's friend called the police, saying Edgar had returned his car, but it was covered in blood. Edgar was arrested, and he led the police to the spot where he'd abandoned his own bloodied clothes and Vicki's school books. Pretty straightforward, right, Not so fast. Despite changing his story and even trying to finger the friend who loaned him the car as the killer, he was convicted and sent to death row, but he continued to loudly claim he was totally innocent. Don't forget. He was still saying he had no memory of the murder. That's when he began to reach out to William F. Buckley, who had a popular show on TV called Firing Line. He was also the publisher of a magazine car called National Review. Edgar had kind of gotten interested in it in prison, and when he lost access to it, that's when he started reaching out to Bill Buckley. Gradually, Edgar managed to convince Buckley of his innocence through fifteen hundred pages of letters over a nine year period. He claimed his confession had been coerced by the cops. Buckley took up Edgar's cause, as did another journalist who believed in him, and Buckley got him a team of high end lawyers to appeal his case. In the meantime, in nineteen sixty eight, Edgar put out a book called Brief Against Death through the publishing giant canop It became a best seller thanks to Buckley promoting it on his TV show. Other books followed. Edgar was actually nominated as the first convicted murderer to join Pan America, which supports authors who fight for human rights. He quickly shot to stardom, and his publisher also pushed for a retrial in the case. Finally, in nineteen seventy one, his case was completely vacated because Edgar had never been read his miranda rights when arrested, and a retrial was ordered, but instead he took a plea deal that resulted in a sentence of time served. William F. Buckley picked Edgar up from prison in a stretch limo with a catered steak dinner inside. They were driven straight to a TV studio where they filmed two episodes of Buckley's hit show, Firing Line. Edgar became a media darling, appearing on literally hundreds of TV and radio shows, lecturing at colleges for thousands of dollars, and writing many many articles. But the good times didn't last for Edgar. Five years later, now forty, un divorced, he married a nineteen year old girl. He wrote several more books, but they all flopped and he started drinking. One night, while out on a drive, he sees a woman walking to a parking lot. He decides to jumper a knife to her throat. He then pulls her into his car, and when she tries to escape, he stabs her twice with the knife plunged all the way into the handle. He just missed her heart, but she still managed to jump out of the car and a witness came to help her. Edgar took off and after two weeks on the lamb, he checked into a hotel in Las Vegas under a false name, but then he reached out to his old pal William Buckley for help. Buckley kind of saw through him this time and called the FBI in this case. During the sentencing, Edgar told the court he deserved to reduce sentence due to his lifelong battle with sex addiction, and to prove his case, he finally confessed to the murder of fifteen year old Vicki, blaming that murder on his sex addiction and hoping that would get him sentenced to a mental hospital rather than a penitentiary. A keep in mind they couldn't try him on Vicki's murder again because that had already been settled. Well, it doesn't matter because it didn't work, and he was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in twenty seventeen. Not long after that final case, William F. Buckley wrote an article for Life magazine. He said he was sorry he had allowed Edgar Smith to con him into believing he hadn't murdered Vicky Zelenski. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our executive producer is Steve Goldstein of Amplify Media. We're out with new episodes twice a week. Thanks for listening to the Backstory, the pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.

There's nothing like a person whose charm lights up a room, unless they're a murderous psychopath. I'm Patty Steele. From murderer to media darling and back again. That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back. One of the most dangerous kinds of criminal is the super intellectual and frequently charming psychopath. They charm their victims and others, and because they don't feel any guilt whatsoever, they don't look guilty, so it's kind of easy to get sucked in, at least for a while. Perfect examples include Charles Manson, who charmed his followers into committing vicious murders for him, and Ted Bundy, who would meet young college women joke around with them. Frequently, he'd be wearing some kind of a sling on his arm and he'd ask for help putting something in his car. Then he'd crack him over the head with a tire iron and stuff them in the back seat. Now here's the thing. Sometimes these people are able to convince others, including powerful people, to help them clear their name. That was the case with Edgar Smith and famous writer and TV political commentator William F. Buckley Junior. Back in nineteen fifty seven, when Edgar was a twenty three year old ex marine with a wife and a baby at home. He borrows a friend's car to take a drive. It's a cold winter evening in New Jersey, and he spots fifteen year old Vicky Zelinsky, an honor student and cheerleader at their local high school in Ramsay, New Jersey. She's walking home from a friend's house. Edgar stops. He asks her if she wants a ride, since she knew him from around the neighborhood. She said sure, thank you. He drives her then to an abandoned sand pit and parks the car. She realizes what's happening and she tries to get out, saying she'll walk home. He grabs her and she struggles. Then she yells at him and slap as He claimed he hit her back and then couldn't remember what else happened. Turns out he had beaten her to death with a large rock as well as a baseball bat. The next morning, her parents found her mangled body. Meantime, Edgar's friend called the police, saying Edgar had returned his car, but it was covered in blood. Edgar was arrested, and he led the police to the spot where he'd abandoned his own bloodied clothes and Vicki's school books. Pretty straightforward, right, Not so fast. Despite changing his story and even trying to finger the friend who loaned him the car as the killer, he was convicted and sent to death row, but he continued to loudly claim he was totally innocent. Don't forget. He was still saying he had no memory of the murder. That's when he began to reach out to William F. Buckley, who had a popular show on TV called Firing Line. He was also the publisher of a magazine car called National Review. Edgar had kind of gotten interested in it in prison, and when he lost access to it, that's when he started reaching out to Bill Buckley. Gradually, Edgar managed to convince Buckley of his innocence through fifteen hundred pages of letters over a nine year period. He claimed his confession had been coerced by the cops. Buckley took up Edgar's cause, as did another journalist who believed in him, and Buckley got him a team of high end lawyers to appeal his case. In the meantime, in nineteen sixty eight, Edgar put out a book called Brief Against Death through the publishing giant canop It became a best seller thanks to Buckley promoting it on his TV show. Other books followed. Edgar was actually nominated as the first convicted murderer to join Pan America, which supports authors who fight for human rights. He quickly shot to stardom, and his publisher also pushed for a retrial in the case. Finally, in nineteen seventy one, his case was completely vacated because Edgar had never been read his miranda rights when arrested, and a retrial was ordered, but instead he took a plea deal that resulted in a sentence of time served. William F. Buckley picked Edgar up from prison in a stretch limo with a catered steak dinner inside. They were driven straight to a TV studio where they filmed two episodes of Buckley's hit show, Firing Line. Edgar became a media darling, appearing on literally hundreds of TV and radio shows, lecturing at colleges for thousands of dollars, and writing many many articles. But the good times didn't last for Edgar. Five years later, now forty, un divorced, he married a nineteen year old girl. He wrote several more books, but they all flopped and he started drinking. One night, while out on a drive, he sees a woman walking to a parking lot. He decides to jumper a knife to her throat. He then pulls her into his car, and when she tries to escape, he stabs her twice with the knife plunged all the way into the handle. He just missed her heart, but she still managed to jump out of the car and a witness came to help her. Edgar took off and after two weeks on the lamb, he checked into a hotel in Las Vegas under a false name, but then he reached out to his old pal William Buckley for help. Buckley kind of saw through him this time and called the FBI in this case. During the sentencing, Edgar told the court he deserved to reduce sentence due to his lifelong battle with sex addiction, and to prove his case, he finally confessed to the murder of fifteen year old Vicki, blaming that murder on his sex addiction and hoping that would get him sentenced to a mental hospital rather than a penitentiary. A keep in mind they couldn't try him on Vicki's murder again because that had already been settled. Well, it doesn't matter because it didn't work, and he was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in twenty seventeen. Not long after that final case, William F. Buckley wrote an article for Life magazine. He said he was sorry he had allowed Edgar Smith to con him into believing he hadn't murdered Vicky Zelenski. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our executive producer is Steve Goldstein of Amplify Media. We're out with new episodes twice a week. Thanks for listening to the Backstory, the pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.