Where is John Smith now?

LIKE his common personal name suggests, John Smith breezed through his life as an unassuming, simple man, but underneath his ordinary, pleasant facade lied a sinister, evil, and cold-blooded killer.

NBC Dateline explores the murders of John Smith, and how some of his victims have yet to see justice, in Chameleon, airing on Friday, April 26, 2024, and available to stream the following day on Peacock and Hulu.

Who is John Smith?

John David Smith III is an American murderer.

He was born on April 2, 1951, though little is known about his childhood and upbringing.

On June 30, 1970, Smith, by then an engineer, married Janice Hartman, his first wife, a go-go dancer from Ohio.

Their rocky relationship translated into a troubled marriage, with Hartman’s family, including her brother, claiming that Smith was physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive.

In 1974, Hartman returned to her hometown in Ohio, intending to divorce Smith.

A court granted the divorce decree on November 14, 1974.

Hartman then reportedly told her family that she needed to “get away for a while,” before she virtually disappeared overnight.

Her family last saw her on November 17, 1974, and found her disappearance especially suspicious given that she didn’t take her car, clothing, or any personal belongings with her.

Two days later, Smith reported her missing.

Smith’s brother, Michael, recalls Smith building a narrow box shortly after Hartman’s disappearance.

Years later, in 1979, Smith’s grandfather discovered the same box and called Michael to investigate.

Michael ended up finding a dismembered corpse in the box.

After confronting Smith, Smith reportedly took the box away from him.

Neither Michael, Smith’s grandfather, or Smith himself ever informed authorities about the discovery, or subsequent cover-up.

Hartman’s remains were discovered just one year later in 1980.

They were found by highway workers in a makeshift coffin on the side of an Indiana field.

Dubbed “Lady in the Box,” the remains would not be attributed to Hartman until 2000.

Meanwhile, Smith moved to Florida and married his second wife, Betty Fran Gladden-Smith, in March 1990.

On October 4, 1991, she seemingly disappeared from the couple’s West Windsor, New Jersey home.

Smith told family and friends that she had gone on a trip, which they found hard to believe, as she had been recovering from a broken hip around that time.

Gladden-Smith’s sister, Sherrie Davis, and daughter, Deanna Weiss, began investigating her disappearance on their own.

They were shocked when they heard that Smith had been married before, and though they couldn’t locate his first wife, they got in contact with Hartman’s brother, Garry.

What was John Smith convicted of?

Police had found a box containing Hartman’s belongings in the mid-1990s, and were narrowing down potential suspects in her cold case.

Smith’s brother, Michael, reportedly confessed that he had seen a mummified body at Smith’s home decades earlier.

In 1999, Smith, who by then was living with his third wife in Escondido, California, revealed a major secret to the FBI.

He told law enforcement personnel about the makeshift coffin containing Hartman’s body.

Indiana authorities had buried the remains of “Jane Doe” decades earlier, and quickly worked to have them exhumed from the grave.

Smith’s third wife, meanwhile, annulled the marriage and testified at his trial.

In July 2001, Smith was convicted of Hartman’s murder, and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Hartman’s family also tried to seek civil damages against Smith’s brother and grandfather for their involvement in covering up the crime, but were unsuccessful.

While no body or remains had ever been found, on November 28, 2019, Smith, while incarcerated, learned that he had also been indicted for the murder of Gladden-Smith.

As part of a plea deal to have the case dropped, Smith confessed to the murder, and told authorities what had happened to Gladden-Smith’s body.

Smith reportedly killed his wife, and then, two days later, wrapped her body in a blanket and discarded her in an industrial dumpster at Carborundum facility in Keasbey, Woodbridge Township, where he had worked at the time of her death.

“I still do not believe him,” Gladden-Davis, Gladden-Smith’s sister, said, as reported by NJ.com.

“He would lie when then truth would serve him better.”

Gladden-Smith also said it was convenient that Smith had finally confessed to disposing of her sister’s body only after the statute of limitations had run out.

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Where is John Smith now?

John Smith was originally serving out his sentence at the Marion Correctional Institution in Marion, Ohio.

He previously unsuccessfully appealed his conviction in 2002, and was not granted parole in 2011 despite being eligible for it.

In 2021, Smith was briefly moved to the Mercer County Correction Center in New Jersey after being indicted for the murder of his second wife.

While John Smith was only ever indicted, and never charged, with the murder of Gladden-Smith, he remains incarcerated for the murder of his first wife, Hartman.

Despite confessing to the murder of his second wife, the court ended up dismissing the murder case.

A major roadblock in the case was the court’s decision to keep Smith’s murder of his first wife a secret from the jurors.

Judge Peter Warshaw said, “Simply stated, that the defendant killed his first wife in 1974 does not prove he killed his second in 1991,” as reported by AP News.

In 2023, Smith was moved back to the Ohio prison system to continue serving out his sentence for the murder of his first wife, Hartman.

He will be eligible for parole in 2029, at the age of 78.