Episode 235

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all
audiences. Listener discretion is advised. The day that we went to Scholar's funeral,
that was That was the last time I've seen Cherish alive. Hello and
welcome to season ten, episode two hundred and thirty five of Sword and Scale,
a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. I'd like to
remind you that we're living in a world of batshit crazy, where a podcast
that talks poorly about murderers and child molesters can be demonetized for wrong think,
and everybody acts like that's just totally normal. Speaking of which, now is
a great time to support the independent content creators that you enjoy. Head on
over to certain scale dot com sash plus to support us, for example,
if you want to, because it's the only thing that's keeping us here.
Despite what you've heard on the internet, socialism doesn't work because nobody wants to
work for free. I'm sure you've probably heard of Little Arkansas. A former
president with an affinity for cigars comes from there, but you've probably never heard
of the little town of Raisin, Arkansas, the seat of Cleveland County,
approximately two counties below Little Rock. Small as it is, hosting only about
fifteen hundred inhabitants, it is still considered to be part of the metropolitan area.
This is probably because it's defined as a commuter town, meaning most people
travel from Raisin to the larger city for work. Historically, Riisen was created
as a result of a railroad being routed through Cleveland County. Citizens of the
neighboring county didn't want trains, so the railway was rerouted through empty land that
gave rise to well Risen. Early in its existence, it was primarily inhabited
by sharecroppers and owners who relied on sales of cotton and lumber for its economic
growth. Today, however, Rising isn't doing so well. The poverty level
is statistically more than twice that of the national average. The people of Rising
stick together. They fish, they go to church, they hunt all together.
But to get a hamburger they have to travel at least twenty miles neither
in and out. What a burger or five guys are worth that drive?
Fight me in the comments. But this is where Kristen lived and went to
school, and the school was very small. The people there, they all
pretty much knew each other there. It was a very close knit community.
And this is where she met a girl named Cherish. When I met Cherish,
I was thirteen and Cherish was sixteen, almost seventeen. I'd say everybody
pretty much knew everybody there. Cherish lived on Rogers Road in Woodlawn, and
that is how I met her. I had a friend, Raven, that
lived on the same road, and I would stay with her a lot whenever
I was younger, and they actually lived about three or four houses down from
each other, and Raven introduced me to Cherish and that's how we become friends.
We didn't become as close as we were until about two years after we
met. Kristen recalled that her friend, Cherish didn't live in a two parent
home, but lived with her grandmother and father while her brother lived with her
mother in a nearby town. Cherish lived with her grandma and her dad to
kind of help her grandma out around the house and just kind of you to
help as much as she could. Because Cherish was very family oriented. She
loved her family, she loved her friends. It was obvious that Cherish also
loved her brother because she always carved out time to spend with him, even
if it just meant going to their mother's house and hanging out with him for
a couple of hours. Her mom, I believe she's worked as a CNA
for a very long time. That's what she is doing now. And her
grandma does the same kind of work she worked in or she works in a
nursing home. Cherish did the same thing. She worked in the nursing home
with her grandma. She assisted with the elderly. She loved helping the elderly,
and she just had a very big heart for helping people. Cherish would
graduate from high school after Kristen because of the three year age difference. Even
though Cherish preferred to be outside doing things like fishing and hunting, she began
helping her grandmother in a nursing home after graduation and expanded her carrying touch beyond
the nursing home. She also had a lady that she would go and sit
with during the week that was not in a nursing home to kind of help
her around the house because she was a widow and her kids didn't live in
the state, so she would help her around the house to do laundry,
cook run errands for things, like that. Kristen was still in school,
but their friendship deepened. She and Cherish began seeing each other almost every day
after school when Cherish visited a boyfriend who lived on the same road. Mostly
they fished together, but they also had other hobbies. Cherish would bring Kristen
along in her grandmother's car and do donuts in the mud, and they looked
for just about any excuse to do anything outside, anything outside. We were
doing it mainly fishing. That was our main thing that we loved to do,
and we were pretty big partiers when we were younger. Cherished she knew
how to have a good time and she could definitely get a crowd going.
She could light up the darkest room with her her laugh and her smile.
They were just so contagious, and we we really clicked. We understood each
other. We had kind of gone through similar things in our past, and
when we were together, we knew that we weren't being judged by one another.
So it was just a very close and important friendship to me. When
we did get close, I mean, we were seeing each other basically every
day, and if we didn't see each other every day, we did talk
almost every day. Kristen anticipated the friendship would outlast any other. It was
a kind of easy, comfortable relationship we all want from our friendships, the
one where a friend that actually cares about you and shows it. But Kristen's
life would forever be altered one chilly December evening in twenty fifteen. That evening
was December third, just two days before Cherish's birthday. After Cherish finished her
work at a private residence, she texted Kristen, but then went home early
to spend time with her grandma and make it an early night. She and
her grandmother were going shopping for Cherish's birthday the next day. What did Cherish
want for a gift, you might ask her and her grandma. We're going
to go to Walmart to get a baby betting set. It was a fine
name of bedsit and Cherish had had her eyes on it while even before she
was pregnant. When I was pregnant, she kept asking me to buy it,
and so she decided for her birthday that that's what she wanted, and
her grandma told her that she would take her to get it. Cherish was
newly pregnant. She was ecstatic about it, and she wanted her best friend
Kristen to go with her on this special occasion, knowing she would see her
the next day. Kristen declined, but according to Kristen, the next day
rolled around and she didn't hear from her. At first, Kristen wasn't concerned
until Cherish's grandma called, asking if Cherish was with her. Of course,
Kristin answered that she hadn't seen her. She and Cherish's grandmother tried to remain
calm as they made numerous calls to no avail. Eventually, the two of
them, along with Cherish's mother, began to panic and filed a police report.
So the night that she went missing, all we knew, all that
I was told whenever her grandma called me, was that her and Cherished were
laying in bed that night, and they were actually sleeping in the same bad
Cherish wanted to sleep with her grandma that night, and they were laying in
bed and they were talking about the baby and her birthday, and she said
that Cherish got a call and she didn't know who it was, but she
got a call and she said, Mama, I'm just gonna step right outside
and I'll be right back. I'll be right back. She didn't even put
shoes on or a jacket because she didn't plan on leaving. She didn't plan
on leaving her yard pregnant and barefoot, quite literally, Cherish the decided to
leave her yard that night for some reason, a cold December night when the
temperature was in the low thirties, the night before her birthday. Why did
she leave the comfort of her grandmother's home and go outside. The only possible
explanation was that she left with someone that she knew. Cherish Albright was pregnant
and would turn twenty two years old just one day after she disappeared from her
rural hometown in Rise, in Arkansas. Her grandmother, mother, and best
friend Kristen had pulled out all the stops in their search for her. Everybody
who loved Cherish was sent into anxiety and alarm, disbelieving Cherish would disappear on
her own and knowing she received a phone call just before going outside in her
bare feet on December fourth, twenty fifteen. Shortly after she vanished, family
and friends started to speculate about who would cause her to go outside in the
cold after ten pm, let alone leave the property. So we didn't know
who called her at first, and her grandma said that she heard a truck
pull up. She didn't see what truck it was, but she heard a
truck pull up, and then eventually the truck pulled off. And all she
kept telling me was I should have went and stopped her. I should have
went and stopped her. You know, I should have done something in it.
I mean, she had her grandma blames herself so much enough trot and
to tell her that, you know, it's not her fault, that she
could not have prevented this even if she wanted to. So we went about
a little over two weeks before or almost two weeks before, we finally found
out what had happened, and you know, we were all hoping for the
best. And Cherish's grandma actually was in a car wreck because she was out
looking for her for her granddaughter. She's looking for her baby girl, and
she was hit by a Tyson Chicken truck and so she was in the hospital.
She ended up losing her vision, a lot of her vision because she
hit so hard, and so she was just I mean, she went through
so much at that time. It was so heartbreaking. With no concrete evidence
or clues, the rest of her family and friends, still working with the
police, were bewildered and frustrated. All that Grandma, who was now confined
to the hospital, could remember is that Cherish received a call that night and
then a truck, a loud truck, pulled up to the residence. Almost
immediately. Cherish was gone. What person in Cherishes circle owned a loud truck?
Well, this is Arkansas, and in this part of Arkansas in particular,
loud trucks can be heard almost everywhere. But they started with the obvious
leads, like an ex boyfriend. Kristin suddenly remembered potentially valuable information about someone
Cherish had dated. According to Kristen, the relationship was fraught with emotional and
verbal abuse, but there was never any physical abuse. She then remembered something
that happened after they broke up. They had a very back and forth toxic
relationship, like mentally and just verbally, but not physically, like they never
got physical with each others what she said to me. But they had dated
for a long time, you know, and they broke up around the same
Timmy and Chas started becoming really good friends, and he did threaten her a
couple of days before she went missing, but it was just because I guess
she borrowed some money from him and she hadn't paid him back yet, and
he was like, you know, if you don't give me my money,
I'm gonna hurt you or whatever. But he didn't mean it. He was
just I guess, trying to scare her into given him the money. So,
of course this individual was brought in for questioning, even though Kristen maintained
he really loved Cherish and would never harm her. The interrogation resulted in the
rapid conclusion that this person was not the culprit, and the search continued.
When detectives began digging into her past, another ex boyfriend came to mind,
but this boyfriend couldn't be part of Cherish's disappearance because he had also mysteriously disappeared,
and get this, he'd been missing for more than a year from a
town not far from rising what was going on in Arkansas. Obviously, this
boyfriend wasn't able to be brought in for questioning, and although his remains were
eventually found, the search for his killer is ongoing. Talk about a weird
coincidence There now a third young man who was romantically involved with Cherish rose to
the surface. Eyeballs singled him out after tongues began wagging and making claims.
In the small community, someone was supposedly running around saying that they were going
to make her disappear. The claims were substantiated, and now officers wanted to
know why this young man would say such a thing. It turned out that
Cherish had named him as the guy who got her pregnant and would be the
biological father. She wasn't keeping this secret to herself, though, but the
young man was. He had been trying to keep this relationship a secret for
over a year. His name was Bradley Smith, but he went by his
middle name Hunter. When I met Hunter, it was around the same time
framed that I had first met Cherish, since they both lived on the same
road. They lived probably about half a mile down the road from each other
for a long time, so they knew each other very well. The first
time I met Hunter, he was actually in a fight in my friend Ravens
front yard. He was fighting with another guy. The impression that I got
from him just meeting him and not really knowing him, he seemed very arrogant
and cocky. He acted kind of like he was better than everybody. And
this was when he was younger, and it only got worse with age.
The older he got, the more cocky he got. He had the attitude
of he was better than everybody. That's the impression that I got when Charis
started hanging out with him. I think it was because most of the people
that she was hanging out with that was in Woodlawn had either moved or you
know, had started a family, and they weren't, you know, partying
and hanging out as much. And so they started hanging out, and they
hung out a lot. There were times that she would be at my house
and he would be constantly blowing her phone up, saying, hey, when
are you coming home, what are you doing, where are you at?
Who are you with? But they weren't dating, they weren't official, they
weren't anything but friends. And he was very possessive over her for some reason.
But at the same time, he didn't want anybody to know that he
was in contact with her and that he had a relationship with her. Although
the sexual relationship they had was behind closed doors. Hunter did take Cherish out
to eat and do other activities with them, but he made their friendship seem
more casual than it was. I think that he liked her a lot,
but he and I don't want to say this because you know, it makes
me feel bad to even think that someone would would think this way a out
of her, But I think he was ashamed of her, and I just
don't understand why, because she was She was a wonderful person and she deserved
so much better. Hunter thought a lot of himself because Cherish didn't have the
slimly impossible body of miss Universe, and her family didn't have money or anything
else really to offer him. He convinced himself that he could do much better
than a girl like Cherish. And now she was not only claiming to him
and his friends that he was the father of her child, but she was
also refusing to get an abortion like he wanted. He was the kind of
guy that he cared more about how a woman looked on the outside than who
she was as a person on the inside. In either way, she was
gorgeous to me in and out. She was beautiful on the inside and out.
If he knew her, he loved her. I mean, she never
met a stranger. She would help anybody the best to her ability, even
if she didn't know him. You know, she always did what she could
for everybody, and he was just he took advantage of her. Hunter set
out to dispel any rumor or notion that he was the baby's father, even
going so far as to maintain he had seen a doctor and was sterile.
Cherish didn't believe him and didn't care anyway. She didn't need Hunter, and
she told him that, but she was going to keep the baby. Twenty
fifteen wasn't a good year for this part of Arkansas. Not only was Cherish
missing and her ex boyfriend was also missing, but a third tragedy also befell
this group of young people. A close friend was killed in an accident and
all attended the funeral. Amongst the mourners was Hunter. He kept giving her
these these sad odds during the funeral, and I told her, you know,
just don't worry about it. What is he going to do here?
It's you know, it's packed, it's a funeral. Surely he has enough
decency to not cause a scene at him one of his childhood friends funeral,
and he didn't. He didn't cause a scene. But the day that we
went to scholar's funeral. That was that was the last time I've seen Cherish
alive. Among the attendees at the funeral were two other common friends, Jonathan
Gunther and Josh Brown. Cherish's grandma, who was still hospitalized, remembered something
about these two. They owned a loud truck. They lived with Hunter unsupervised,
even though Josh was only fifteen. Hunter was babbling everywhere that he wasn't
the father and he was going to make Cherish disappear. At least that's what
he told his own mother, who then told her friend, who then went
to the police. Noticed that it wasn't Hunter's mother who took that information herself
to the station, it was an uninvolved third party. She added that she
had seen both Jonathan and Josh at the store together acting suspiciously the day before
Cherish's disappearance. These clues were enough for deputies to drive to the residence of
Hunter's mother, where they found Josh and Jonathan burning debris. The officers quickly
transported the boys to the station for questioning. Josh was accompanied by his mother
since he was a miner, and the reveal was unusually easy, especially since
Mommy wanted to make sure her son wouldn't do any time. In the background
of the interrogation, she vocalized to Josh, you better tell these detectives what
you know so that you can save your butt, not so that we can
find Cherish, but selfishly so she could save her son's ass. Of course,
we know how that works. Detectives pressure the family, the parents to
get their kid to speak, and it doesn't ever do them any good.
Lawyer up people, So as you would expect, fifteen year old Josh listened
to his mother and provided the answers to the burning questions, who did it
and where's the body? Search was conducted in a wooded area located approximately one
point two miles southeast of Rogers Road. The deceased body, Cherish Albright,
was found in a circular hole approximately four foot ten inches deep. The body
was that of an adult white female, heavy set, dressed in bluish gray
pullover, lightweight shirt and a black jacket with the right arm in the sleeve.
The body also had some lightweight, short legged pants that appeared to be
pajama bottoms. The body was positioned in a semi seated position, leaning on
to its left side. The body was cold to the touch and extremities were
flexible, indicating that the body had come out a rear. There was evidence
of blunt force trauma to the head area. When attempting to move the body
from the burial site, it was discovered there was a single crossbow arrow located
in the lower left back, just above the hip area. Entry appeared to
be at the back. On a frigid night in December of twenty fifteen,
Cherish, with her baby alive inside of her, was mercilessly hunted down and
thrown into a muddy hole, where she lay for one week until she was
found and the wheels of justice began turning. Fifteen year old Josh was interviewed
more than once, claiming he wasn't forthright with what he knew because he was
afraid of Hunter Smith and Jonathan Gunter. Hunter had told Josh he would hunt
him down if he said anything. He finally caved and described the nightmare taking
place on December fourth. This is what he said, following his admission that
he had overheard Hunter tell at least one person, I'm going to kill that
bitch. The following narrative took place once Josh had arrived at the fields and
woods where the murder was to be carried out. Jonathan and Hunter were already
in position waiting. This is a reenactment. She got out and I walked
around the back of the truck and because I was peeing, and then she
went to the front of the truck and Hunter stepped out of the woods and
started yelling at her, and he shot her with a crossbow. And then
he tried, like, you know, mister Garry, I'm telling you the
exact truth. I was fixing to get in the truck and drive off and
hunt her. He started yelling at me. He said, get on my
knees. Hunter and Gunther both walked up and Gunther hit her first, and
then she fell over and was coughing and stuff, and then Gunther hit her
again. Cherrish was coughing and stuff because she was now spewing blood from her
mouth. But that wasn't enough for Hunter. He needed to make sure she
was dead because he didn't want that baby, and apparently this was the only
way to prevent it from being born. She ultimately died by taking a baseball
bat to the back of the head after screaming out please for the lives of
herself and her baby, Cherish was gone. They found her. It was
blow freezing outside, and she left with no shoes on and no jacket.
Who would do that? You know she's pregnant, She's knowing going to put
herself in danger And the only reason that she even left that night is because
she was tricked. They tricked her, and they did this by luring her
with promises that Hunter wanted to talk and work things out. Come on,
Josh said, get in the truck and I'll take you to him. During
questioning, Josh recalled that after Cherish was ambushed and shot in the back with
an arrow, the other two took turns hitting her over the head with a
baseball bat, because Hunter had already made it clear that if the arrow didn't
kill her, they were to finish her off in this way. Josh was
then threatened that if he ever told anyone, both Hunter and Gunther would hunt
him down and kill him. Hunter made it clear that he did not want
the baby under any circumstances. He made it clear that he was embarrassed by
his relationship with Cherish, and he made it clear to more than a handful
of people just what he was going to do about it. As he solicited
anyone and everyone to help him between the time of the murder and the interrogations,
which Hunter refused. By the way, the other two boys were asked
if Hunter's mom knew anything. The following was Gunther's response. Did she talked
to you about this? Ucase when you got there? You know, sir?
I really um, she she just kind of she thought about her.
She asked me if I thought that he really did it? She told she
ask you that, and what you told him? I told her no because
I didn't want her getting involved in But I'm sure she had her suspicions.
I can't go into that. But what actually happened. One of the places
came where did Hunter go? Well, he was outside I want to say
he was outside of smuggling weed with one of the guys. I think the
drama. And then as the last time I scene the answer to the specific
question where did Hunter go? Was? It crawled to the safety of his
mother, Mommy, where he could discuss the situation and lawyer up. Huncher
was told by his mother that under no circumstances was he to talk to police
without an attorney present. Some good advice, whether you're guilty or not let's
talk about Hunter's mother. You know her very well, man, I know
she used to come in and now o current once Hunter found out that Cherish
was pregnant, did you ever talk to his mother about any of it or
were you present when she was talking about it? Well, she came in
the house right after that had found right after he had found it. She
came in the house from Martin one day and we was sitting around and in
the game around where the pool table is, and she had mentioned something about
it, because something about Cherish's grandma had been going to his sister's workplaces and
telling her, telling him how it feel to be an aunt or something like
that. And then I Hunter said, excuse my language, but he said,
I'm going to kill that bitch. That's exactly what he said to his
mom and to his mom, even though she tried to hide her knowledge of
this murder under lock and Key, just like she tried to hide her son,
she not only told her friend that Cherish was pregnant, but that she
was not happy about being a grandmother at the age of thirty nine. Because
you know, she did such a good job the first time around with Hunter.
She didn't want to spoil it, or God forbid put in any more
work in terms of parenting that is worse. Yet, the monday after Cherish
went missing, she admitted to her friend that Hunter had made a statement that
he could have done something to make her disappear, to which Mommy admonished Hunter,
telling him to keep his mouth shut or he could end up in jail.
For the mothers of Josh Brown and Jonathan Gunter, it was all about
protecting babies. Their babies, no other babies, just their's and certainly not
Cherishes. Josh's outright confession and Gunther's eventual admissions were integral to solving this case,
but other evidence included the burning of the baseball bat and clothing, a
shovel in the truck, and a crossbow at Hunter's home that matched the arrow
found in cherishes body, and finally, a deer stand and climber for the
stand proved that the location of the killing was accurate as confessed by Gunther.
By the way, a deer stand is a perch that is placed up on
a tree above the eyesight of deer for hunting. In this case, it
wasn't used for deer, though the land where the grave is that where the
howld stud and she was buried. Yes, you know how I'm at.
I know his grandpa rents it, I guess for hunting run. I let
him. Actually he had a climber that broke, and I let him use
mine, And so he took me out there and showed me its other folture
climbs. Family. Was it that you learned? It was a h My
dad can tell you it was a big million climbers team. I think that's
what it called. He had, old man. That's that sounds more right?
All right? I'm asked you this if you saw that climbing saying as
you know it, it's so how would you know? It's just the way
it looks My dad gave him. Can you tell men Hank for kicker,
any stratches, any marks or anything about him? The knitting I can tell
about the knitting woman to the sea. How's that? How how's there's a
couple of them ripped all right? Where it's where they ripped by the edges?
My edges? Any big scratches or you didn't put your name or anywhere
anything like that, sir, But you think you can look at that stand
and tell us for sures you know, and you wound it to Hunter.
He sat in the woods. You know, if you put it in that
area where the girl was very I'm for sure he moved it. You could
do this. Um, I'm gonna just leave the tape run and we're gonna
take a short break to turn it air down, and we need to running
it stand And don't you just love how ironic it is for the officer to
ask the killer, are you cold? We'll turn the air down. Cherish
didn't get the opportunity to escape the cold and return to the having warmth of
her grandmother's house. Her fate was decided for her, as was the fate
of her unborn child. After compiling all the evidence, it was clear that
Hunter masterminded cherishes demise and committed the shooting and beating that killed her. Now,
the only question that remained would be how many assailants would actually face murder
charges other than Hunter, and would the suspects stand trial for one homicide or
two. Beloved and adored by family and friends, twenty one year old Cherish
Albright went missing one chilly December evening. Her grandma, who she lived with,
was especially baffled since Cherish announced she was elated about her new pregnancy,
but the alleged father of the child was not so happy. In fact,
he was determined to end the pregnancy by ending Cherish's life. He vowed to
hunt down and kill his accomplices if they ever snitched. Fortunately, the miner
of the group, Josh, broke down and admitted his part in the butchery
and bloodshed of Cherish's final hours. Twenty year old Jonathan Gunter and twenty year
old Hunter Smith would be held without bond capital murder, kidnapping, and abuse
of a corpse. Josh Hunter was also charged with first degree murder, but
was pled down because of his willingness to participate in the investigation. Oh and
an additional person was arrested for hindering arrest and apprehension. And that would be
Hunter's mommy, who hit her son and Jonathan while instructing them on how to
abscond from the situation. Kristen had strong words for the mothers in this story,
you know, but it didn't surprise me because she was always just a
piece of shit, really, and so was Hunter's mom and she actually she
took it a little too far with her involvement. Now, don't get me
wrong. I'm a mother as well. You know, I have that same
motherly love and that motherly instinct, and I would do anything in the world
for my son, but I would not help him hide after killing someone.
And not only did she help hide him and lied to the police, but
she also was convincing him to do what he had to do to get rid
of her. This was evidenced by the confiscated text messages between Hunter and his
mother in an effort to save her own son, the cold blooded Hunter.
She was one hundred percent complicit in the cover up. Talk about bad parenting.
Not only do you raise a psychopath, but you also try to protect
him. Finally got a confession out of one of them. Hunter had already
took off. He was hiding at his family's dear camp that his mom took
him to. Now, initially it was Jonathan and Hunter at his mom's house.
They were hiding out there when the police showed up. And because this
was right after Josh had already confessed and they didn't know that, so they
had already went on Hunter's mom's property. Whoever's name it was in I believe
she said that she had to sell her house. That they were living in
to pay for lawyer fees and all of that and to keep herself out of
jail, and his mom is basically I'm just gonna go out and say it.
She's a big piece of shit, and I hope that, you know,
she gets hers very soon. The only reason that she is not in
jail right now is because she testified against her own son in court. Because
she's that big of a slee's ball. She's just a lying, narcissist bitch,
and I think that he got his narcissistic tendencies from her and the controllinginess
from her. Kristen said she actually went to school with Jonathan Gunther and had
one word for him, weird. To be more specific, she said very
weird. She detailed that he didn't interact well with others and was socially awkward
and the one you would suspect as plotting the whole thing. If you look
at the picture of him that was used on the app, he's smirking and
wide eyed. He really does look like a sociopath, you know. I
mean, it just shows you that you never really know who a person is,
no matter how long you've known them, no matter how nice they seem
you never know how evil someone can truly be, and it's scary. Since
this has happened, it has made me so much more cautious that sometimes almost
like just it's traumatizing, really, like I have PTSD and anxiety from it,
just because if somebody can do that to her that she's known her whole
life. They used to fish together when they were toddlers and diapers. What
I mean, how could someone do that? I mean, it's just it
doesn't make sense. Jonathan and Josh were sentenced to life in prison as a
result of plea deals, while Hunter Smith was sentenced to death for capital murder.
Hunter's mother served probation. The trial took only one week and the jurors
needed less than five hours to reach a unanimous conclusion. That is, until
semantics became involved. The Supreme Court states that there's a question about the unborn
child and the definition that falls into now today book with the Cleveland County clerk
who says this ruling is unbelievable, I'm not The Cleveland County Circuit Clerk,
Jimmy Cumming says he sat through the entire trial of the disturbing murder of pregnant
twenty two year old Cherish Albright, Brad Smith was sentenced to death after court
documents show he shot Albright through the back with a crossbow and hit her in
the back of the head with a wooden bat Then with help, Smith buried
her. Now three years later, the Arkansas Supreme Court voted five to two
that Smith be resentenced. Justice Courtney Hudson noted the question at hand was whether
the state legislature's law properly provided for the unborn child definition of person to be
applied when an aggravating factor in capital murder sentencing is being considered. No,
I'm disappointed, Cumming says. This murder shook the community and this sentence being
overturned will be another shockwave through Cleveland County. Very up about it. An
unborn child is not a person according to the Arkansas Supreme Court. Don't you
just love government? A bunch of fucking ghouls, As you can imagine,
Cherish's grandmother and mother were the most upset of anyone. We reached out and
spoke to her mom, Belinda, who made it clear that the memories are
just too painful for her to discuss. In twenty fifteen, though she had
a little something to say. She's a very sweet girl. She loved her
brother, loved her family. It's like a scene in a movie. You
never think the police are going to pull up and tell you that you know
your daughter has been found and murdered. She naturally was also very distraught over
the Supreme Court's ruling. Hunter was convicted of capital murder and was to pay
for it with his life. If you're unclear about what capital murder is exactly,
here's a quick summary. Capital murder originated as a means of defining the
types of homicide with some extenuating circumstances that make it especially heinous. The term
is only used in eight states, and interchangeable terms are aggravated murder and first
degree murder. In any case, if the homicide is categorized by any of
these terms, the death penalty is on the table. Cherish his mother fought
hard along with senators to get the definition of person to include a fetus at
any stage of the pregnancy when the mother is murdered. This is not to
be confused with today's politics involving pro choice versus pro life, but it's not
completely unrelated either. You cannot take away someone's constitutional right to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness unless you deperson them first with you know a
definition. Oh, by the way, trigger warning. In twenty seventeen,
a jury found Brad Hunter Smith guilty of capital murder, but prosecutors pushed for
a death sentence because he killed someone other than Albright, the unborn child,
and that got Arkansas Representative Joe Cloud's attention. Not only did he kill the
woman in question, he also killed a baby. Later, the Arkansas Supreme
Court overturned that sentence because part of the law did not consider a fetus a
quote person. I wanted to make it extremely clear to the Arkansas Supreme Court
that yes, that definition a person in the criminal Code applies also to aggravate
circumstances. In March, Cloud's bill passed, making it clear to the courts
and everybody that an unborn child, in any term of pregnancy, it's considered
a human life in the future, and no other mother, grandmother, family
member, friend will have to go through all that. In two thousand and
four, President George W signed a significant federal bill called the Unborn Victims of
Violence Act. Here's President Bush at the signing. I'm pleased that you all
could be here for the first bill signing ceremony of the year two thousand and
four. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act provides that under federal law, any
person who causes death or injury to a child in the womb shall be charged
with a separate offense in addition to any charges relating to the mother. As
of today, of our nation will acknowledge the plain fact that crimes of violence
against a pregnant woman often have two victims. Therefore, in those cases,
there are two offenses to be punished. The law should have applied to the
case of Cherish, but the argument was specifically about a definition, the same
definition that is being quarreled about in twenty twenty two what defines a person.
That is precisely the argument Cherish's mother was hoping to win in the case of
her pregnant daughter's death as it pertained to Arkansas state law, and she won,
but only after a Hunter's sentence was reduced from death to life without parole.
Rather than try the whole case again, Cherish's mom and family accepted the
change. Kristin says that to this day she still has difficulty coping with what
happened. It has caused her to have PTSD and she is a lot more
aware of her surroundings and hesitant to let anyone into her life without knowing them.
But even then, I would give him the label of being a monster
because he had this planned for three or more days and he still went through
with it. He had time to think to himself, maybe I shouldn't do
this, but instead he not only involved two other people, which how he
got them to be a part of it. I have no idea. I
don't know if drugs were involved or if they were just desperate for friendship that
bad to not only do that get two other people that have their whole lives
ahead of them involved to sit here and scheme up a plan to not only
kill someone, but brutally kills someone that is pregnant, just because it's possibly
your baby and you don't want anybody to know. And the fact that he
thought that he was going to get away with it, he did. He
drove up and down that road, knowing that she was buried in his backyard,
knowing and drove up and down that road like nothing had happened. Because
he was that cocky, And how can that not be a monster. And
I fully believe that if he was not caught, if Josh had not come
forward and finally told the police to where her body was, they would have
never found her and he probably would have done it again, because I feel
like he is that type of person that he would have would have killed someone
again. Except for his cockiness, Kristen says, he seemed perfectly normal.
He had no criminal history, but that's exactly why he fits into our motto
the worst monsters are real. It's also interesting that the killer's name in this
episode is really Bradley Smith, but everyone called him Hunter because he preferred it
that way. Like a lot of people in Rising, he was a sportsman.
He liked his four wheeler, his truck and just being outside. He
loved to hunt, and there's nothing wrong with that unless you're hunting people.
But when he discovered that Cherish might be pregnant, he enlisted his buddies to
help him trap her, ambush her with a crossbow, and finally beat her
to death before placing her on a trailer and riding away with her corpse.
The way he treated her another human being, the things that he did to
her, you wouldn't do to a deer, not without a clear conscience anyway.
But if there's one silver lining in this horrible, horrible story of a
young mother and her unborn baby taken from this world for absolutely no reason other
than shame, it's that Bradley Hunter Smith will never hunt again. Thanks again
for joining us. Head on over to swordanskille dot com sash plus to join
if you can. We'll see you next time for everybody else, and until
then, let stay safe, Hey Mike and restless sword in Scale. I
just finished plus episode eighty nine, and you brought me to tears with that
one. It's been whatt a over four years since since my suicide has ten
failed, And if it had, I would have missed out on the love
of my life. I wouldn't be married, I wouldn't have the most beautiful
stepdaughter in the world. I would never have met my nephew, who was
like the light of my life. I wouldn't be working towards becoming a police
officer and just so love. I would have left a lot of lives if
I had. I don't want to say successfully, but that's the word that's
coming in to my mind. Successfully left this planet. There would have been
so many lives that would have been changed forever, and for anybody that's listening
and struggling, just please remember you're not alone, and you're so loved and
you're needed and necessary. Mike, thanks so much for the tears who stuck
shit. It's a very important message those At the same time, we truly
are the best a short time listener, been all of the show, Big
Time Band Forever, thanks so much for reaching us here in Phoenix, Arizona
named Kylie, can't wait to hear more, can't wait to be a plus
number forever. Rock On My Dude decided to get the part