{"id":1229,"date":"2019-10-28T14:03:08","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T21:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/?p=1229"},"modified":"2019-10-28T14:24:24","modified_gmt":"2019-10-28T21:24:24","slug":"inside-the-mind-of-the-killer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/blog\/inside-the-mind-of-the-killer\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Mind of the Killer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Justice for Chris Smith and the Conviction of Edward Shin – Part Three<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

-William\nS. Burroughs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll the motives for murder are covered by the four Ls:\nLove, Lust, Lucre and Loathing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

-P.D. James<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’ve kept up with these blogs, you’ve been reading\nabout evidence that led us to the conviction of Edward Shin, murderer of Chris\nSmith. So far, you know that the Orange County Sheriff’s Department became\ninvolved because of blood found at the 800xchange office suite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, we, as “average” people, have a hard time\nrelating to the act of murder. Oh, we may use the word “murder” offhandedly\nwhen we\u2019re mad at someone, but how many people do you know who really do it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minds of most murderers are quite orderly, I would\nthink. Most murderer\u2019s thoughts are centered around themselves, their wants,\ntheir needs. Caring about others never enters the picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Narcissism, though not exclusively reserved for the murderer,\nseems to be a common thread. Taking another\u2019s life for no other reason than to make\ntheir life easier is the highest form of narcissism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To gain financially, permanently resolve marital problems, take\nrevenge for being spurned or to end someone\u2019s life simply out of sheer hatred, whether\nwarranted or not, is the highest form of selfishness. After all, it\u2019s all about\nthem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edward Shin is just such a man. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you undoubtedly realize, where we previously left off wasn\u2019t\nthe actual beginning of this story, but merely the beginning of our involvement\nat PGI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Orange County Sheriff\u2019s Department began their\ninvestigation, they quickly realized this case would probably rest on\ncircumstantial evidence. And there was plenty of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s backtrack a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For months prior to our entering the former 800Xchange\noffices, Chris Smith\u2019s family had been receiving emails seemingly from him\n(Chris). Although the tone of the emails sounded like Chris, the gist of most\nof them had no personal information. As a matter of fact, after reading them\nall, what struck me was the absence of warmth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was never any mention of concern of even curiosity\nabout what his family was up to. Most spoke of his travel plans, legal matters,\nhis mental condition and making money. Strange for a person who had a very\nclose relationship with his family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As stated earlier, Ed Shin was in debt to his former\nemployer, LG Technology, after embezzling $700,000, and Chris was being dragged\ninto the legal entangling. There was also Leadpoint, a company where both Chris\nand Ed had worked that was apparently filing a lawsuit against both. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(I\u2019m not going to go too deep in the details of this case.\nI\u2019ll try to keep it as simple as possible. The emails are repetitive and too\nconvoluted to write them all down. I\u2019ll only use what\u2019s pertinent to the case.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Smith\u2019s father, Steven Smith, was the first to believe\nsomething was off. As he began to ask questions about the circumstances\nsurrounding his son\u2019s departure, and his desire to leave family, girlfriend and\nbusiness behind, and go on an unplanned trek across the globe, Steven’s\nsuspicions grew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the correspondence, Steven learned Chris had sold\nhis share of the business to his partner, Ed Shin, in June 2010; Chris dumped\nhis long-time girlfriend; and then he left the country with a woman named Tiffany\nTaylor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris’s family understood Chris was financing his global jaunt\nwith a down payment for his part of the business and a stash of gold coins he\nhad purchased previously. Chris’s reasons for leaving were mostly stress and legal\nrelated, as far as his family was concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After many emails from Chris to his family and friends, on\nDecember 26th<\/sup>, 2010, all correspondence stopped. On April 18th<\/sup>,\n2011, his worried father filed a missing person\u2019s report with the Laguna Beach Police\nDepartment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Steven quickly discovered was that Chris\u2019s passport had\nnot been used to leave the country. Now Steven began to really question this\nwhole disappearance of Chris and his “desire” to travel the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sequence of events concerning Chris Smith\u2019s last days\nare a bit sketchy. Ed Shin was the last one to see Chris alive, so we\nunderstand the facts only by what Ed chose to admit at his murder trial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what we know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris dropped off his brother, Paul Smith, at the airport\nand planned to pick him up when he returned. Chris never showed up. This was\nnot like him to not show without a call. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Paul, who also worked at 800Xchange called the office,\nhe was told by Ed Shin that Chris had left the country. Ed also claimed Chris\nhad gotten drunk and urinated and then vomited on the floor, and he had to have\ncarpet cleaned because the office smelled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ed gave all the employees a week off while he had the\noffices painted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emails from Chris to family and friends soon began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If all this sounds and feels a little strange, your feelings\nwould be accurate. Although a bit hurt that Chris had left without saying good-bye,\nhis family, at first, seem satisfied by the emails Chris continued to send\nregarding his whereabouts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the emails suddenly stopped, their thoughts about\nChris\u2019s world travels began to change. As I said before, the emails were too\nnumerous and repetitious to record verbatim, but when you look back at the\ntimeline and global mapping of Chris’s travels, the roadmap of his trip seemed\nodd. Chris appeared to be crisscrossing the globe in a random pattern, as\nthough he was purposely making any real contact with him nearly impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite a few of Chris’s emails mentioned how he was angry\nabout goings on with 800Xchange, but also happiness about the development of his\nnew software that would make him rich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris’s final emails mentioned he would be heading for Cape\nTown, South Africa, with some friends he had just met. Chris also stated he was\nselling gold coins along the way to continue financing his trip. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even while reading these emails secondhand, all the various\ncountry trips and what he was stating seemed extremely unwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this were a novel, you’d be screaming at the protagonist to\nnot go, knowing there was no way this would end well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But perhaps that\u2019s how it was meant to look. Maybe Ed was writing\nthese emails this way to control what we were supposed to think. Narcissism and\nthe master manipulator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, would there really be an alarm sounded if Chris suddenly\ndisappeared off the face of the earth? Not with how the emails were scribed. Possibly\nour news stations might broadcast: Young American male disappeared from Cape\nTown, carrying gold coins and traveling with strangers. He has not been seen nor\nhas contact been made for weeks. Family worried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next time: A father sounds the alarm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Justice for Chris Smith and the Conviction of Edward Shin – Part Three \u201cNobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death.\u201d -William S. Burroughs \u201cAll the motives for murder are covered by the four Ls: Love, Lust, Lucre and Loathing.\u201d -P.D. James If you’ve kept up with these blogs, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":1252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[169,187,193,155,182,174,189,175,170,183,173,191,181,176,185,186,177,190,179,178],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pgiexecutives.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}