What Happened to Chris Smith?
Smith and Shin were the co-founders and co-owners of 800XChange, a lead-generation company based in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. The two men, both in their early 30s, shared a similar goal of wanting to make money, according to GQ.
But, according to investigators, the partnership turned sour on June 4, 2010. That afternoon, prosecutors allege, Shin, a married father of four, brutally stabbed or beat Smith to death in the 800XChange office.
Prosecutors say Shin committed the crime because he had a gambling problem and had been caught stealing money from his previous employer, LG Technologies. Shin had been convicted of embezzlement and ordered to pay $805,000 in restitution and legal fees and needed signoff from Smith to come up with the funds.
Smith decided he wanted out of the partnership and agreed to sell his stake in the company for $1 million. The two men were meeting to finalize the buyout deal on June 4 when the murder took place. Shin, prosecutors allege, didn’t want to pay Smith the $1 million, so he killed him instead.
Prosecutors say Shin then rented a pickup truck and drove Smith’s body into the desert. He told 800XChange’s employees to work from home for the next week, then hired a cleaning company to take care of the blood, GQ reported.
After the killing, Shin hacked into his dead business partner’s email account and started sending messages pretending to be Smith, according to investigators. One went to Smith’s attorney, claiming per court docs that Smith would sell his stake in the company for $30,000 and about $15,000 worth of gold coins—much less than the $1 million they had initially discussed.
He also wrote to Smith’s friends and family as Smith, claiming the late businessman had embarked on a big, around-the-world adventure—sailing along the coast of South America one week, then sand boarding in South Africa the next.
As the months went on, Smith’s family grew increasingly suspicious. Smith didn’t seem like his normal self in the messages.
“The emails were short and sweet,” Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department, told the Associated Press in September 2011. “They were just too generic.”
When the emails stopped abruptly in December 2010, his family members knew something was seriously wrong. They filed a missing person’s report and contacted the U.S. State Department, where staff found no record that Smith had ever left the country.
Meanwhile, the landlord for 800XChange’s office hired a pair of private investigators to find Shin and Smith, who still owed $40,000 in rent. When they searched the office, they found small dark stains that looked like blood.
Detectives discovered even more blood, which DNA testing confirmed belonged to Smith. They arrested Shin on August 28, 2011, at Los Angeles International Airport as he was boarding a flight to Canada.
Investigators also arrested another man in connection with the crime, Kenny Roy Kraft, who was Shin’s personal assistant. They believe Kraft helped Shin get rid of Smith’s belongings, but ultimately dropped the charges against him after he testified for the prosecution.
When Does Greed Lead to Murder?
Overall, financially motivated murders are relatively rare, making up a fraction of all homicides committed in the United States, according to Kenya Brumfield-Young, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at Saint Louis University who studies homicide trends and offender decision-making. But, because money is such a powerful motivator, these types of murders can and do sometimes occur, she tells A&E Crime + Investigation.
Criminologists often categorize financially motivated homicides as “instrumental” crimes, she says. Unlike “expressive” crimes, which are usually triggered by strong emotions, instrumental crimes tend to be more intentional and calculated. They are often carried intentionally and deliberately, to achieve a specific goal.
“People who commit these crimes tend to view the homicide as a means to an end,” she says. “They often believe the financial reward outweighs the risk. While not all [perpetrators] are sophisticated planners, many display traits associated with calculated decision making. They may appear orderly, organized or rational in the planning phase, even if the actual act of murder is chaotic.”
Additionally, killers who are motivated by financial gain typically do not fit with our stereotypical profile of a murderer, Brumfield-Young says. They may appear stable, going about their daily lives as business owners, partners, spouses or professionals, all the while hiding a terrible secret that they have internally rationalized as “not that bad,” she explains. People who murder for financial gain, she says, typically see killing as a solution to a problem.
“It is not that money forces someone to kill,” she adds. “It is that they interpret murder as a pathway to financial relief or financial gain.”
Where Is Edward Shin Now?
In a lengthy police interview, Shin admitted to killing Smith but claimed he was acting in self-defense. At his November 2018 murder trial, Shin told the jury that Smith had attacked him, then died after hitting his head on a desk during the ensuing fight. Shin didn’t call 911 to report his business partner’s death but, instead, got in touch with an acquaintance for help getting rid of the body. He also admitted to posing as Smith in emails, telling the jury it was a “terrible thing to do.”
“It was wrong on every level,” Shin said of his behavior following Smith’s death.
On December 7, 2018, the jury deliberated for about an hour before convicting Shin of special circumstances murder for financial gain. Shin will remain in prison for the rest of his life, but many questions remain unanswered. Shin testified that he paid the aquaintance thousands of dollars to dispose of Smith’s body, which still has not been found; Shin has so far refused to divulge its location.
“I can't talk about that…because I don’t know,” Shin told 20/20 during a jailhouse interview. “...I wish I could tell you more but, there's something bigger that I just can't talk about.”
