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Ed Shin Posed as Dead Business Partner Chris Smith
Handsome businessman Chris Smith seemed to have it all: a successful business, a beautiful girlfriend and a relaxed lifestyle in California.
But in the summer of 2010, Chris apparently left his old life behind, selling his stake in his business, breaking up with his girlfriend via text message and setting off on a sailing trip around the world, according to Dateline: Unforgettable.
For six months, Chris’s family received a series of emails from the jet-setter, detailing his adventures alongside a Playboy playmate as they traveled from one exotic location to another.
But when the emails came to an abrupt end and Chris’s family contacted the U.S. State Department to investigate their son’s whereabouts, they made a chilling discovery: Chris had never left the United States. Instead, he had met a grim fate months earlier. by a cunning and heartless killer, who later assumed the identity of the dead man to deceive his close-knit family for months.
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“For a family, a thinking and caring family, it was like a year in a house of illusions,” Correspondent Keith Morrison commented.
Who was Chris Smith?
Chris has always been a creative and independent thinker who loved the outdoors and surfing.
“He was one of those people who thought anything was possible,” recalled his brother Paul Smith.
After a stint at community college, Chris found success as an entrepreneur in California’s booming tech world, focusing on advertising.
In 2009, Chris was looking for his next adventure and moved to Laguna Beach, California, where he joined Ed Shin to create 800XChange, a lead generation company.
In many ways, the business partners seemed like polar opposites. While Chris was a laid-back single guy who spent his free time catching the next wave, Shin was a married father of four and a faithful churchgoer.
However, together, the business prospered. Chris began seeing a beautiful girl, who he confessed to his family could be “the one.”
Chris Smith’s emails to family
Then, in June 2010, Chris apparently changed course abruptly. He broke up with his girlfriend via text message and sent an email to his family, saying he had sold his share of the business and was embarking on a three-week sailing trip to the Galapagos Islands and Costa Rica.
Chris’s family were surprised, but he had always been impulsive and, according to Paul, seemed “very stressed” in the weeks leading up to the life-changing decision.
“I wanted the best for him, whatever decision he made,” Paul said.
Chris told his family in emails that he had taken the trip with a Playboy co-star — a detail that struck them as odd. As the weeks passed, Chris sent emails saying he had decided to extend his trip, traveling through South America and heading to Africa.
In a final email sent on December 26, 2010, Chris told his family that he planned to embark on a dangerous plan to sell his gold Krugerrands to a dealer in Rwanda who would pay “30% more.”
“It’s just like this out here [expletive] as real currency,” he wrote.
Paul admitted that he believed his brother had “lost his mind” in carrying out such a dangerous plan and began to suspect that something was not right.
Chris’s father, Steve — a former police officer — felt the same way, and when the emails stopped, he contacted the US State Department, hoping to track his son’s movements through his passport.
But Steve was surprised to learn that Chris’s passport had never been used and there was no evidence that he had ever left the United States.
Steve drove to Laguna Beach and spoke to Shin, who told him that Chris had used a fake passport to leave the country. However, something still didn’t feel right to Steve, so he decided to report his son missing to the Laguna Beach Police Department.
When detectives spoke to Shin, he told them that Chris wanted out of the business and had agreed to sell Shin his share of the business before he left on his trip. According to Shin, he kept in touch with Chris via email and even sent him money to India as part of a regular payment for his shares in the business.
“I don’t know where he is,” he insisted. “I mean, honestly, I think he’s on the other side of the world.”
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A crime scene is discovered
Shin’s claims began to unravel after private investigator Joe Dalu was asked to look into the situation by the manager of the property where 800XChange’s office was located.
The company had moved months earlier, leaving a large number of unpaid bills.
Dalu entered the office and was surprised to find what he thought was blood on a light switch and the door frame.
He called the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which brought crime scene investigators.
They discovered even more blood, including a large dark stain on the concrete beneath the carpet. DNA tests would later reveal that the blood belonged to Chris.
Detectives also learned that at the time Chris disappeared, Shin was on probation for embezzling money from another company. If he didn’t pay $700,000 in restitution in the case, he would be sent to prison.
“Ed Shin is desperate, he has a lot of debt he’s paying off because of a criminal case and he has a wife and four children,” former Sergeant Ray Wert told Morrison.
Ed Shin’s Confession
Orange County detectives brought Shin in for questioning.
Initially, he denied knowing anything about Chris’s death, but after detectives told him they were arresting him for first-degree murder, Shin changed his story. He claimed that he had killed Chris in self-defense after a paranoid Chris attacked him in the office. Shin claimed that Chris fell and hit his head on the desk and died.
He then admitted to spending months posing as Chris online to throw his family off the scent.
However, prosecutors did not believe Shin’s story and believed that the married father had killed Chris in cold blood after Chris began to suspect that he might be stealing from the company.
“This case was about greed in its most diabolical and basic form,” said prosecutor Matt Murphy. “He killed a really nice guy for money so he could gamble in Vegas. But to then assume his identity online and torture his family like this, it’s horrific.”
He suggested to a jury in 2018 that Shin beat or stabbed Chris to death in his office before disposing of his body. Shin has never revealed the location of the body.
To throw everyone off the scent, just minutes after killing Chris, Shin sent an email posing as his dead business partner to a lawyer, falsely claiming that he had agreed to sell his shares in the company to Shin. With full control of the business, Shin was able to siphon off the money he needed.
Shin’s lawyers, however, once again claimed that Chris was killed in self-defense after attacking Shin in the office.
The jury took less than an hour to convict him of first-degree murder for financial gain.
Shin, who is now serving a life sentence behind bars, has still refused to give any information about the location of Chris’ body.
“There are some secrets a man is willing to give his life for,” Shin told Morrison ominously from behind bars.