Photo Archive of the Susan Daniels Smith Case

Mark and Kathy Putnam

Susan Daniels Smith (with the blue pants) Her sister Shelby Ward and below Mark Putnam

Side comments and variations from the movie

By Traciy Curry-Reyes

According to Mark Putnam, Susan was ok as far as looks go. In the movie Patricia Arquette, who portrayed Susan, was a blonde bombshell. But, in Mark's estimations Susan was not very nice looking, was not very well endowed, but she did have a nice smile. Though, her hometown viewed her as pretty . Susan was very conscious of her looks and never went out without her make-up on; putting it on whether she was going out or not. She was very poor and came from a poor background, which she started to resent as she became more acquainted with Mark and his wife Kathy. Another variation in the true story is that Kathy Putnam, Mark's wife, and Susan actually became friends, close friends. Though, Kathy would later say that she soon became very uncomfortable with Susan's friendship. She claimed that Susan started to really become interested in their family personally, Mark in particular. As Kathy shared information about Mark and what he liked, she began to see changes in Susan who was slowly evolving into the person she felt Mark desired. This is something I would have liked to see more of in the movie. The movie in no way hinted at a possible friendship between the two women. As Susan fell in love with Mark, she began to call the house at all hours of the night. This is when Kathy wanted to start stepping back from the situation. The movie also did not delve alot into Susan's use of drugs. According to Mark and Kathy, Susan was high most of the time. Even Susan's sister Shelby said that Susan used drugs, mostly pills. Susan began to buy Mark gifts and even cut her hair short in order to look more like his wife Kathy. Susan, who was known as a big liar and exaggerated tons, began to tell everyone she came into contact with about her affair with Mark. She went as far to say that the two were in love and that he would be leaving his wife very soon. In Mark's story he insists that there were only 5 encounters between them and always in his car, but evidence suggests other wise. There was documetation that Mark on frequent occasions rented a motel room for the two of them. She was also known to stay at Mark's home when his wife Kathy was away. After Susan began an affair with Mark, Kathy claimed that she noticed a change in her. She claimed that Susan was not the same unconfident woman. That all of a sudden whenever she called the house, which became more infrequent, she was straight to the point and she seemed more confident. Mark claimed that he could never tell that Susan was pregnant, but a photo taken of Susan right before her death contradicts this. In the movie Mark Putnam dumps Susan's body over the ravine, but Mark claims that he did not throw the body down the ravine, he claimed that he placed it on top of the hill because it was too heavy to take down the hill; almost as if he wanted to show her the dignity he never seemed to show her while she was living. Mark claims that he only choked her, but when her body was found she had two missing molars, which suggested trauma of another sort. I must say that even though there are some inconsistencies in his statements, it seems that his actions were indeed not premeditated. His wife would later say that his demeaner totally changed in the summer of 89. She claims tht Mark kept diarhea, couldn't eat, lost weight, stopped running every morning, and developed a nervous itch. At the time she did not relate it to anything dealing with Susan Daniels Smith. The state of Susan's body was in poor condition when they found her. Several of her body parts were scattered over the area, due to animals no doubt. A gold necklace was found, which belonged to her sister Shelby, and some brightly colored fingernails that were her own. Accroding to a report, her body had obviously rolled down the hill at some point, getting caught on something, where it rested until she was found. Mark stated that before dumping the body he removed her clothes, a pair of shorts which were his and too big for her, and a shirt that she borrowed from him. She was not wearing any undergarments at the time. In the movie Shelby went to visit Mark Putnam and begged him to give the location of her sister's body, but that did not really occur. In fact Shelby despised Mark so much one wonders if the gun she claimed she didn't know was in her purse at the trial was really meant to kill Putnam in the courtroom, Shelby denies such allegations.

Update: He's Out

Copyright 2000 The Hartford Courant Company THE HARTFORD COURANT September 29, 2000 Friday, 7 SPORTS FINAL SECTION: TOWN NEWS; Pg. B7 LENGTH: 415 words

HEADLINE: AGENT WHO KILLED LOVER ENDS SENTENCE BYLINE: OLIVIA F. GENTILE; Courant Staff Writer BODY:

He strangled his 27-year-old lover. His wife, a heavy drinker, died at 38. But today, Coventry native Mark Putnam, the first FBI agent to be convicted of homicide, will walk out of a Massachusetts prison and begin a new life in Florida. Putnam, now 41, has completed a 10-year prison sentence for killing Susan Daniels Smith, his informant and lover while he was stationed in Kentucky. Two years ago, Putnam's wife, Kathy, who stood by him through the Smith ordeal, died at the Manchester home she was sharing with their two children. She suffered from organ failure brought on partly by excessive drinking, according to Manchester police Det. Thomas Larson. Before Putnam heads down to Florida, he will stop in Manchester to visit Kathy's parents, Raymond and Carol Ponticelli, Carol said Thursday. The Ponticellis have remained close to their son-in-law, whose crime became the subject of a book by Joe Sharkey, a former Wall Street Journal editor. "He's a wonderful man," said Carol Ponticelli, who was busy preparing for Putnam's arrival. "It was a crime of passion." Putnam told police he accidentally choked Smith, a Freeburn, Ky., resident, during an argument at a Pikeville, Ky., hotel shortly after the FBI transferred him to Miami. She was threatening to expose their affair and her pregnancy, according to Putnam. After he killed her, he drove her body around in his rental car for a day before dumping it, naked, in a ravine. A year later, in 1990, Putnam, who said he was tortured by guilt, led police to Smith's body. He ended up pleading guilty to first-degree manslaughter and receiving a 16-year prison sentence. That sentence expires today because he earned credit for good behavior. "He was what I would consider a model inmate," said Carol Czirr, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Corrections. He volunteered in the chapel and the commissary, and he took continuing education classes. The one-time rising star in the FBI spent time in prison learning how to repair heating and cooling systems, Czirr said. She didn't know if he planned to enter that field upon his release. He will not be supervised once he leaves prison, Czirr said. While Putnam was officially a Kentucky prisoner, he served his sentence in various federal institutions. In 1999, he was transferred from a prison in Allenwood, Pa., to a new facility in Devens, Mass., near Worcester. During the decade he spent in prison, he made a couple of unsuccessful bids for parole.

Updates: deaths of Putnam's wife, and Daniel's brother and son

February 25, 1998

Kathy PutnamPIKEVILLE, Ky. (AP)

Kathy Putnam, the long suffering wife who stuck by her FBI agent husband after he admitted killing an informant he got pregnant, died Feb. 5 of an apparent heart attack. She was 38.Mrs. Putnam was found dead in her Manchester, Conn., home by her 13-year-old daughter.Mrs. Putnam was the wife of former Pikeville field agent Mark Putnam. He became the first agent ever convicted of a homicide when he pleaded guilty in June 1990 to strangling his lover, Susan Daniels Smith, to death the previous year.A year later, Putnam, who said he was racked with guilt, led authorities to the body. He pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in exchange for being allowed to serve a 16-year sentence in a federal medical facility.Mrs. Putnam blamed what she called the FBI's lax supervision of the tiny Pikeville office for her husband's situation and had threatened to release information she said would damage the agency.
geovisit();

On Their Brother's Death in July 2002

A Pike County woman, frustrated that her brother still hasn't been found after being swept away by a flash flood in May, said search teams haven't done enough to find him."It's just like everything has stopped, you know, like he was nothing," Shelby Ward, the missing man's sister, told the Appalachian News-Express of Pikeville.Ward said she saw the same lack of concern when her sister, FBI informant Susan Smith, disappeared some 13 years ago in the same area of eastern Kentucky. Her body was found about a year later, and FBI agent Mark Putnam was charged with her murder. The search for Adam Daniels, 24, of Freeburn, was officially suspended on May 13, after 11 days of searching the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River. Even so, search teams still are periodically going out on the river in search of the missing man.Ward said she has tried to prod search teams to do more.Daniels was washed into the Tug Fork on May 2 after trying to drive through swift water that had flooded a highway at Freeburn. His car was pulled from the river the next day, but Daniels was not in it.Authorities say Daniels is presumed drowned."I begged him not to go down the road because the river was so high," said Daniels' mother, Tracy Daniels.Doug Tackett, coordinator of Pike County Disaster and Emergency Services, said crews, including divers and cadaver dogs, have searched the river and found nothing."We're not satisfied with not finding him either," Tackett said.Tackett said the body could have been swept miles downstream."We're pretty well confident he's not anywhere along the riverbanks," Tackett said.Tackett said he and a dive team plan to be back on the river this week, searching several areas, including one where a cadaver dog may have smelled a body."The dogs say there's something there but we haven't been able to find it," Tackett said.Ward said she pushed for months to get authorities to investigate an affair between her sister and the FBI agent. That connection finally led to the discovery of her sister's body. Ward said she plans to continue pushing just as hard for help to find her brother's body."We know he's gone. We know he's dead," Ward said. "It's just an awful, terrifying, horrifying feeling."
geovisit();

Floods leave 4 dead, 12 missingPIKE COUNTY MAN PRESUMED DROWNED

By Lee MuellerEASTERN KENTUCKY BUREAU

A Pike County man was missing and presumed drowned yesterday after heavy rains flooded the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River Thursday night on the Kentucky-West Virginia state line.The missing man, Adam Daniels, 24, of Freeburn was reported seen clinging to a swinging bridge that spans the Tug between Freeburn and Majestic, said Ronald Vaughan of the Phelps Volunteer Fire Department.Vaughan said rescue workers were unable to immediately search for Daniels. "We couldn't put a boat in the water," he said. "That Tug river was running too high and too wild."Up to 5 inches of rain fell overnight in the Tug River Valley, creating fast-rising flooding that officials said appeared to kill at least four people in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. In Kentucky, 350 homes had to be evacuated.In West Virginia and Virginia, authorities said at least 12 people were reported missing. Kentucky State Police Det. Mike Goble said one other person reported missing in Pike County was found yesterday.Daniels' 1996 Oldsmobile stalled on Ky. 194 in high water near the Vulcan Bridge, Goble said. Daniels and a passenger, Rebecca Eldridge, attempted to walk through the water to dry land."She made it," Goble said. "He didn't."High water yesterday lapped high on flood walls between Williamson, W.Va., and South Williamson, Ky., while frustrated rescue workers waited for the water to recede.Vaughan said the river at Freeburn yesterday was still too high to allow a wrecker to pull Daniels' car from the water.The National Weather Service said the Tug was expected to crest at least 15 feet above flood stage.As the water traveled down the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River, Williamson closed the doors of its flood wall for the first time in its 18-year existence to protect the coal and railroad town. The wall was finished in 1984, seven years after a record flood nearly wiped out the town of about 3,400 people.Flood warnings were posted in Pike and Martin counties until 8 a.m. today."At Freeburn and Majestic, the water was up to the roofs of some of the houses," said Ray Bowman, a spokesman for the Kentucky Division of Emergency Services. "And at the mouth of Hurricane Creek the water is over the road by about 10 feet."Emergency shelters were set up at a number of schools, including the Majestic-Knox Creek School, and the Pike County Courthouse, officials said.State police said the deluge primarily struck the Pike County communities of South Williamson, Freeburn, Knox Creek, Majestic and Blackberry."This one hit hard," Vaughan said. "It's going to be hard to tell how many mobile homes got washed off."Pike Judge-Executive Karen Gibson said the only mining-related problem reported involved a sludge pond in the Majestic area. The area below the pond was evacuated while the structure was being examined by state and federal officials, Gibson said.Meanwhile, dozens of people gathered yesterday on the roadsides overlooking the flood waters at Goody, near South Williamson. In some places, only rooftops could be seen sticking out of the water.Flooding was not new to Vickie Taylor-True of Hardy."In the last flood, I had to be taken out by boat," she said. "At least this time I had enough warning. In the middle of the night is when it's hardest."In West Virginia, Gov. Bob Wise declared a state of emergency in McDowell County, and the National Guard sent two helicopters to remove stranded residents from their homes.In Virginia, rescue crews searched along Knox Creek in Buchanan County for five people who were unaccounted for. One body was recovered, said sheriff's dispatcher Vicky Jones."People were tying themselves to trees," Jones said. "They couldn't get helicopter assistance in; it was awful.from movies based on true stories database by Traciy Curry-Reyes
geovisit();



Susan Daniel Smith's son also passed away a few years ago. I don't have any further info on his death yet.