S6 Ep12: Above Suspicion: The FBI Informant Who Disappeared

Crimes of the Centuries

Amber Hunt and Audioboom

History, Documentary, Society & Culture, True Crime

4.7 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2026

⏱️ 66 minutes

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Summary

A young mother from a tiny Kentucky hollow vanished without a trace in 1989, leaving behind her clothes, her makeup and her two children. She'd been working as an informant for FBI Agent Mark Putnam, so her family held onto one hope: Maybe she'd finally gotten the fresh start she'd always dreamed of through the federal witness protection program. It would take a year to find out the truth about what happened to Susan Daniels Smith. And it was worse than anyone had imagined.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Some crimes are so heartbreaking or shocking that they change laws, change society, or even
0:13.0	earn the label, Crime of the Century.
0:16.0	But the stories that made headlines in decades past aren't necessarily remembered today.
0:22.3	I'm Amber Hunt, a journalist, an author, and in each episode of this show,
0:27.0	I'll examine a case that's maybe lesser known today, but was huge when it happened.
0:33.8	This is Crimes of the Centuries.
0:49.9	Thank you. This is Crimes of the Centuries. Shelby Ward hadn't heard from her sister Susan for days.
0:57.1	This was concerning. They had last talked on Thursday, June 8, 1989. Susan had been staying at the landmark, a mid-range hotel in
1:04.4	Pikeville, Kentucky for several days. She wasn't supposed to be there. The man she had followed out
1:10.3	there was married and didn't seem thrilled to see her.
1:14.3	But Susan desperately needed to talk to him.
1:17.7	She had been trying to convince him for weeks that the baby she was carrying was his
1:22.7	and that he needed to step up and agree to pay child support or, better yet, leave his wife like he had
1:29.3	been saying he would for the duration of their nearly two-year-long affair. The last time Susan
1:35.6	talked to Shelby, she said the conversations hadn't made much headway. Mostly, she and her lover
1:41.5	had just slept together. Susan went on and on about what a great body he had,
1:47.2	how he was so in shape it made her weak in the knees.
1:51.2	Geez, that's great, Shelby said.
1:53.6	But what about the baby?
1:55.6	Susan said he didn't want to talk about it.
1:58.0	He wasn't even sure it was his.
2:00.2	Somehow Susan didn't seem nearly as offended it. He wasn't even sure it was his. Somehow Susan didn't seem
	...

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