A New York man made a chilling confession about the brutal murder of a Virginia mother three decades ago.
Stephen Smerk, 52, pleaded guilty this month to first-degree murder in the 1994 killing of 37-year-old Robin Lawrence. who was found stabbed 49 times in her Springfield, Virginia, home while her two-year-old daughter was just steps away.
Smerk, who was 22 years old at the time of the heinous crime, was serving his first year in the Army and was stationed at Fort Meyer in Arlington, Virginia, when he left the base, broke into the victim’s home and committed the murder. WVTM reported.
Prosecutors said that in a confession to police, Smerk admitted, “I cut her up pretty good.”
“I haven’t killed anyone else, if it wasn’t for my wife and kids I’d probably be a serial killer,” he said.
Robin Lawrence, 37, was found stabbed 49 times in her Springfield, Virginia, home in 1994.
Stephen Smerk, 52, a married father of two teenagers from upstate New York, pleaded guilty this month to first-degree murder.
Assistant Virginia Attorney Kelsely Gill said Smerk wanted to “drive far enough from his headquarters so he could kill.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered if there were 50 people in that house,” he said, “he set out to kill someone.”
On the night of November 20, 1994, Lawrence was home alone with her daughter while her husband was out of the country on a business trip.
When her husband couldn’t locate her, he contacted a family friend who made the gruesome discovery.
Lawrence was found near her bed with a pillow between her legs and knife wounds to her neck, head and face.
His young daughter walked around the bloody crime scene in a dirty diaper.
It was reported that a screen on one of the windows of his home had been opened.
When police arrived, they processed the crime scene and collected DNA evidence, but did not find any matches at that time.
Cold case detectives continued working in the case for years and in 2019 sent the DNA back to Virginia-based Parabon NanoLabs, which specializes in genetic genealogy analysis.
During a press conference last September, Virginia Deputy Police Chief Cory said a profile had been developed using DNA collected from the crime scene.
He said that after three years they had managed to create a family tree that led to a family DNA match, FoxDC5 reported.
Parabon NanoLabs created a digital composite sketch of the suspect, and detectives compared it to a yearbook photo of Smerk when he was 16 and a DMV photo of him when he was 26.
The images show Smerk at different ages, including a digital composite sketch and a photograph of the killer aged 16 and 26.
Smerk’s home was located in Niskayuna, a town in Schenectady, New York.
Meanwhile, Smerk had no idea investigators were closing in on him and lived with his wife and two teenage children in Niskayuna, a town in Schenectady, New York, where he worked as a software engineer.
Fairfax County detectives traveled to his home last year, where they confronted him while he was throwing out trash and requested a DNA sample.
He complied and Smerk then drove to the Niskayuna police station, where he made a confession to police.
During a press conference in September of last year after Smerk was arrested, Fairfax County Prosecutor Steve Descano said, “This was the type of crime that shocks a community.”
In the courtroom on October 4, the victim’s family watched as he pleaded guilty to murder.
After the hearing, Lauren Ovans, the victim’s niece, said, “He seems to have no soul.”
Lawrence studied at Carnegie Mellon University and was a promotions manager at a tire company.
Lawrence’s sister, Mary Cowans, said WUSA9 Television News that his sister’s murder ‘devastated our family for many, many years and was very difficult and hard for all of us.’
After seeing Smerk in the courtroom, he said, “I can’t deal with that or anything he did.”
Smerk is scheduled to be sentenced on March 7 and faces up to 70 years in prison.