In the winter of 1969, in the small community of Cotter, Arkansas, the life of 32-year-old Obie Fay Ash was brutally cut short. A mother of three, she was described as having a petite figure with shoulder-length, dark auburn hair. On the morning of December 3rd, she went about her errands in the nearby town of Mountain Home, making stops at various shopping centers and a drug store.
However, after these stops, she seemingly vanished.
When her husband, Lonnie, returned home that evening to find her gone, he began a frantic search, contacting friends and family, none of whom had seen her. By 6:30 p.m., he reported her missing to the authorities. A police bulletin was issued, describing Obie Fay Ash and her dark green 1957 Volkswagen. Later that evening, around 8:30 p.m., a local resident who had heard the broadcast spotted her vehicle parked near the Baxter Furniture Company, just a couple of blocks from the town square.
Upon investigation, law enforcement made a gruesome discovery. In the backseat of her car, they found the nude body of Obie Fay Ash. An autopsy would later reveal the horrific details of her death; she had been beaten, raped, sodomized, strangled, and stabbed thirteen times in her shoulders and neck. Her own clothing had been used to bind her, with her bra tied around her throat and her underwear around her ankles.
The investigation into her murder eventually led to a 21-year-old man named Mark Alan Smith, who had worked as a handyman at a television repair shop where Ash was also employed. Smith confessed to the crime, stating that he had encountered her at their workplace, where he then raped and strangled her. Believing she was already dead, he proceeded to stab her multiple times before binding her body with wire and placing her in her car. At the time of his confession, Smith was already incarcerated in Illinois, serving a lengthy sentence for the murders of two other women, Jean Irene Bianchi and Jeanann Lingenfelter. He later waived extradition to face first-degree murder charges in Arkansas for the death of Obie Fay Ash. Authorities also suspect Smith may have been responsible for other murders, both in the United States and overseas during his time in the military.
