“Chameleon”: Dateline NBC Examines the Two Missing Wives of Convicted Killer John Smith July 11 2026

Dateline NBC returns with another compelling true crime investigation on Saturday, July 11, 2026, when the weekend mystery “Chameleon” airs at 9:00 p.m. ET/8:00 p.m. CT. Reported by Andrea Canning, the two-hour broadcast explores one of the most unusual homicide investigations in recent history, tracing the disappearance of New Jersey paralegal Betty “Fran” Gladden Smith and the discovery that her husband, John David Smith III, had another wife who had vanished under strikingly similar circumstances years earlier.

The episode follows investigators, FBI agents, and Fran Smith’s family through a decades-long search for answers that ultimately uncovered the murder of Smith’s first wife, Janice Hartman, led to Smith’s murder conviction in Ohio, and resulted in a second murder prosecution in New Jersey that ended in controversy. Through interviews with Fran’s daughter, her sister, detectives, and retired FBI Special Agent Robert Hilland, Dateline examines how persistence uncovered a hidden history that remained concealed for decades.

• Who Is Convicted Killer John Smith & Where Is He Now? 2026 Update & Profile
• Who Was Fran Smith & What Happened to Her? 2026 Update & Profile
• Who Was Janice Hartman & What Happened to Her? 2026 Update & Profile

Fran Smith’s Disappearance Raises Immediate Suspicion

Betty “Fran” Gladden Smith was a 49-year-old paralegal who had recently married engineer John Smith after the couple met while living in Florida. In 1991, they relocated to the Canal Pointe condominium community in West Windsor, New Jersey, after Smith accepted a new engineering position with Carborundum in Middlesex County.

At the time of her disappearance, Fran was recovering from hip surgery after suffering a broken hip. According to investigators and family members, her limited mobility made it difficult to believe she would voluntarily leave home without notifying loved ones. On September 28, 1991, she vanished without a trace.

Nearly a week later, John Smith reported his wife missing to West Windsor police. He claimed she had left a handwritten note stating she was “going away for a few days” and reminded him to feed the fish. He suggested she had packed a suitcase and gone to visit relatives in Florida. Detectives quickly discovered inconsistencies. The suitcase Smith claimed she had taken remained inside the condominium, and Fran’s relatives confirmed she had never contacted them or arrived in Florida.

Fran’s daughter, Deanna Childers, immediately sensed something was wrong. When she questioned Smith about her mother’s whereabouts, his responses failed to reassure the family. As days became weeks, relatives grew increasingly convinced that Fran had not left voluntarily.

Investigators Discover a Hidden First Marriage

During the early stages of the missing persons investigation, detectives uncovered information that Fran’s family never knew: John Smith had been married before.

His first wife was Janice Elaine Hartman, whom he married shortly after high school in Ohio. The marriage ended in divorce during 1974 after only a few years together. Detectives learned that only days after the divorce became final, Janice disappeared.

At the time, Ohio authorities believed Hartman had voluntarily left and treated the matter as a missing person case rather than a homicide. With little evidence available, the investigation stalled and eventually went cold.

The revelation stunned Fran’s family. Two wives connected to the same man had disappeared under similar circumstances nearly two decades apart. Detectives began comparing the two cases and noticed striking similarities in Smith’s explanations.

In Janice’s case, Smith claimed she had left for Florida carrying a red suitcase. Following Fran’s disappearance, he again suggested she had traveled to Florida, this time with a yellow suitcase. Investigators viewed the nearly identical stories as significant.

A Secret Life Begins to Unravel

As investigators continued examining Smith’s background, they uncovered another secret.

Despite still being married to Fran when she disappeared, Smith had maintained a long-term relationship with another woman who lived at a Connecticut beach house that he owned. The woman believed Smith was divorced and had no idea he had previously been married twice.

She also had no knowledge that both wives had disappeared.

Working with detectives from Milford, Connecticut, she agreed to cooperate with investigators by making a recorded telephone call to Smith.

During the conversation, she confronted him about Fran’s disappearance and asked whether his wife was dead. Smith responded that he did not believe so but acknowledged investigators believed he had harmed her. When questioned about Janice Hartman, Smith claimed they had divorced and that he had only recently learned she remained missing.

The conversation became even more significant when the woman asked whether he had lied during a police polygraph examination.

Smith initially replied that he had failed the examination. When pressed directly about whether he lied during the test, he answered, “Yes, I lied during the test.”

That recording would later become one of the investigation’s most important pieces of evidence.

FBI Investigation Revives the Case

For years investigators believed John Smith was responsible for both disappearances but lacked sufficient evidence to prosecute.

The investigation entered a new phase after FBI Special Agent Robert Hilland became involved in 1998. Hilland, who had previously served as a police officer in West Windsor, coordinated a nationwide investigative effort targeting Smith’s family members, former girlfriends, coworkers, and acquaintances while simultaneously interviewing Smith himself in California, where he had relocated.

During the lengthy interview, Hilland challenged Smith about inconsistencies in his statements and confronted him with the secretly recorded telephone conversation in which he admitted lying during the polygraph.

According to Hilland, Smith denied making those admissions until investigators played the recording using Smith’s own voice. Hilland recalled Smith turning red after hearing the tape.

During questioning, Smith also raised a hypothetical situation involving two people arguing before one was struck and killed by a bus, asking investigators whether the survivor would be guilty of murder. When agents asked whether that reflected what happened to Fran, Smith refused to provide an explanation, saying only that she was not dead and adding that if she was, she was “probably in heaven.”

The interview ended after Smith claimed he was suffering a heart attack.

The Discovery That Solved Janice Hartman’s Murder

Days after the FBI interview, investigators received the breakthrough that transformed the entire case.

John Smith’s brother, Michael Smith, agreed to cooperate after receiving immunity from prosecution. He revealed that during 1979 he had seen a large plywood box stored inside their grandparents’ garage in Ohio.

According to his account, Smith had brought the sealed box there shortly after Janice disappeared in 1974. Michael later witnessed his grandfather pry open the container and discover what appeared to be human remains inside. The body was missing its lower legs, and the hair had become discolored after years inside the box because dyes from nearby clothing had transferred onto the remains.

Michael said his grandfather instructed the family not to contact authorities because he feared the discovery would devastate Smith’s grandmother. Instead, the family contacted John Smith, who arrived, loaded the box into his Corvette, and drove away.

The brother carried the secret for two decades before finally revealing it to investigators.

He later participated in another recorded conversation with Smith. During that call, Smith dismissed the box as a practical joke and claimed it contained a dead goat. When Michael described recurring nightmares in which Janice chased him carrying her severed legs, Smith responded only with, “OK.”

Janice Hartman’s Body Is Finally Identified

Investigators traced the brother’s story to an unidentified body discovered by Indiana highway workers in 1980.

Road crews had recovered a wooden box abandoned in a roadside drainage ditch. Inside were human remains that authorities could not identify using available forensic technology. The victim was buried in a cemetery in Morocco, Indiana, as an unidentified Jane Doe.

Following Michael Smith’s statement, investigators exhumed the remains and conducted DNA testing.

In April 2000, forensic analysis confirmed the victim was Janice Hartman.

The identification solved one of Ohio’s oldest missing person cases nearly twenty-six years after Janice disappeared.

Within months, Wayne County prosecutors charged John Smith with murder. He maintained his innocence, but following trial proceedings he was convicted in 2001 of murdering Janice Hartman.

The court sentenced Smith to 15 years to life in prison, where he remains incarcerated.

The Long Search for Fran Smith

Even after securing Smith’s conviction for Janice Hartman’s murder, investigators refused to abandon the search for Fran Smith.

Robert Hilland organized multiple searches of locations connected to Smith, including excavation work at his former New Jersey workplace and searches of his Connecticut beach property. Investigators also used undercover prison informants hoping Smith would reveal what happened to Fran.

None of those efforts produced physical evidence or located her remains.

Despite the lack of a body, Mercer County prosecutors believed decades of circumstantial evidence—including Smith’s inconsistent statements, the similarities between both disappearances, and his established pattern of behavior—supported filing murder charges.

In November 2019, a New Jersey grand jury indicted John Smith for Fran’s murder.

Prosecutors argued that after successfully concealing Janice Hartman’s murder for years, Smith had refined his methods when Fran disappeared by ensuring her remains would never be recovered.

The Murder Case That Never Reached Trial

The prosecution suffered a major setback during pretrial proceedings in 2022.

Mercer County prosecutors sought permission to present evidence of Smith’s conviction for murdering Janice Hartman, arguing that the remarkable similarities between both cases demonstrated a common pattern.

Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw rejected the request under New Jersey’s rules governing evidence of prior bad acts. The judge ruled that introducing the Ohio murder would unfairly prejudice jurors and that killing one wife did not prove Smith murdered another.

Without that evidence, prosecutors concluded they could no longer establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Rather than proceed to trial, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office negotiated an unusual agreement.

In July 2023, prosecutors dismissed the murder charge in exchange for Smith providing information about what happened to Fran’s body. Smith did not admit killing her. According to information shared privately with Fran’s family, he claimed he wrapped her body in a blanket two days after her death and disposed of it in an industrial dumpster at the Carborundum facility where he worked in Keasbey, New Jersey.

The prosecutor’s office stated that the agreement represented the best opportunity to provide the family with answers because recovering the body after more than three decades would likely be impossible.

Family Members and Investigators Reject the Outcome

The decision to dismiss the case generated criticism from both Fran Smith’s family and retired FBI investigators.

Fran’s sister, Sherrie Davis, rejected Smith’s explanation, stating she did not believe his account and felt the agreement failed to provide meaningful answers or justice. The family maintained that Smith had repeatedly lied throughout the investigation and questioned why his final statement should be accepted as truthful.

Robert Hilland expressed similar concerns, arguing that Smith’s description of leaving a body in a busy industrial dumpster lacked credibility because numerous employees would likely have discovered it. Hilland also criticized prosecutors for granting Smith immunity without requiring corroborating evidence or a complete confession.

Although the New Jersey murder prosecution ended without a conviction, John Smith remains imprisoned in Ohio for the murder of Janice Hartman. His next parole hearing is scheduled for 2029, and Fran Smith’s family continues to oppose any effort to secure his release.

More than three decades after Fran vanished, her body has never been found. Dateline NBC: Chameleon chronicles the investigation that uncovered a hidden pattern spanning multiple states, exposed decades of deception, secured justice for one victim, and left another family still searching for complete answers.

More “Out of the Darkness”

• “Chameleon”: Dateline NBC Examines the Two Missing Wives of Convicted Killer John Smith July 11 2026
• Who Is Convicted Killer John Smith & Where Is He Now? 2026 Update & Profile
• Who Was Fran Smith & What Happened to Her? 2026 Update & Profile
• Who Was Janice Hartman & What Happened to Her? 2026 Update & Profile