Exclusive interviews reveal murder suspect was plotting murder-for-hire hits from her cell
In 2019, Becky O’Donnell was driving to the funeral memorial service of Linda Collins-Smith, her best friend who had recently been killed in Pocahontas, Arkansas, when she was pulled over by police and arrested for the murder.
O'Donnell was driving in the car at the time with her fiancé, Tim Loggains. “We took 'em out basically at gunpoint,” Sheriff Kevin Bell told ABC News’ "20/20."
Loggains was not arrested.
Linda Collins-Smith had been stabbed to death in May 2019. Her family discovered her body under a tarp in her driveway. Investigators, despite the surveillance cameras on the house having being removed, were able to obtain footage from the security company and found evidence they said showed Becky O’Donnell committed the crime.
O’Donnell had been Linda Collins-Smith’s best friend and served as an aide to Collins-Smith during her time as an Arkansas state senator. O'Donnell met Collins-Smith through Loggains, who was a friend.
“She and I shared political views, had a lotta common interests and goals from a legislative perspective, and that was the basis of the start of our friendship,” Loggains told ABC News about his connection to Collins-Smith.
O’Donnell was his longtime girlfriend, who became very close to Collins-Smith.
“We went to grade school and high school together, so we knew each other basically our whole lives,” Loggains said about O’Donnell.
When O’Donnell was arrested and charged with capital murder, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence, she maintained that she was innocent. Loggains stood by her.
“I'm mad. I'm upset, I'm scared,” he said. “And my fear was that they were tryin' to cover for the judge and tryin' to pin it on Becky.” Linda Collins-Smith’s ex-husband, former judge Phil Smith, with whom she had recently gone through a messy divorce, was a suspect before the police arrested O’Donnell. Smith was later cleared of any wrongdoing.
“I think that Becky reached a point where she decided there was no other way out,” said Bell, who, along with investigators, started to suspect that O’Donnell might have been stealing money from her friend’s bank account. O'Donnell was not charged in connection with the alleged theft.
While in jail, O’Donnell started talking to her cellmates about how she was innocent.
“She had pictures of Miss Linda on her wall in her cell,” her former cellmate Melissa Duede told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “That was her best friend. And she didn't do this to her, she said,” Duede recalled.
Duede and another cellmate, Cassandra Geoffrion, who also spoke with ABC News exclusively, said that one day O’Donnell came to them with a plan to kill Linda Collins-Smith’s ex-husband and his new wife. From there, her fellow inmates said she began talking about how she could get certain prosecutors killed.
“It was my understanding that the inmates were soon to be released,” said Bell. “And then once they got out, she had set it up for them to help her commit this murder.”
“It shows her personality,” he added. “She's homicidal, you know, from the very beginning.”
O’Donnell had even allegedly planned ahead about how she could pay for the murders.
“She had said at Phil's house he had a bunch of gold and silver,” Geoffrion said, referring to Phil Smith. “And we could take that and we could just keep it.”
Bell said that the former inmates brought investigators proof to corroborate their story, in the form of a forged suicide note that O’Donnell had written, pretending to be Phil Smith. “We were able to prove from handwriting analysis that Becky wrote that note,” he said.
“The reason I said something was because I felt like somebody else might actually go through with the plan,” said Geoffrion. “And I care about other people's lives.”
O’Donnell eventually confessed to her fiancé, through their respective lawyers, that she had killed Collins-Smith.
“I was mad. I was hurt. I felt used, I felt stupid,” said Loggains. “I can't think of a worse betrayal. She murdered my friend and lied about it.”
O'Donnell pleaded guilty to solicitation of capital murder, for plotting murder-for-hire hits from her cell, first degree murder and abuse of a corpse. She was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Police officially cleared Tim Loggains, and Collins-Smith's ex-husband Phil Smith, both of whom had been suspects at certain points in Collins-Smith’s murder.
“No amount of punishment will ever fill that void that Rebecca O’Donnell made in our lives the day she killed our mother,” Tate Williams, Linda Collins-Smith’s daughter, said during a press conference.
“It will never bring my grandpa’s daughter back, or our mother back, or our children’s grandmother back.”
