A chilling confession from a killer three decades after Virginia’s mother was brutally murdered in front of her daughter

A New York man made a chilling confession about the brutal murder of a Virginia mother three decades ago.

Stephen Smerk, 52, pleaded guilty this month to first-degree murder in 1994. who was found stabbed 49 times in her home in Springfield, Virginia, while her two-year-old daughter was just steps away.

Smerk, who was 22 years old at the time of the heinous crime, had been serving his first year in the Army and was stationed at Fort Meyer in Arlington, Virginia, when he left the base, broke into the victim’s home and committed the murder, WVTM reports.

The prosecutor’s office said that in her testimony to the police, Smerk admitted: I cut her pretty bad.

“I haven’t killed anyone else, if it weren’t for my wife and children, I would probably be a serial killer,” he said.

Assistant Virginia State’s Attorney Kelsely Gill said Smerk wanted to “drive far enough away from his barracks to kill.”

“It wouldn’t matter if there were 50 people in that house,” she said. “He decided to kill someone.”

On the night of November 20, 1994, Lawrence was home alone with her daughter while her husband was abroad on a business trip.

When her husband was unable to contact her, he contacted a family friend who made the gruesome discovery.

Lawrence was found near her bed with a pillow between her legs and knife wounds to her neck, head and face.

Her daughter was walking around the bloody crime scene in a dirty diaper.

The report showed that the glass in one of the windows of her house was broken.

When police arrived, they examined the crime scene and collected DNA evidence, which turned up no matches.

Detectives working on the cold case continued to work they have been dealing with this issue for years, and in 2019 he again donated the DNA to Parabon NanoLabs, a Virginia-based company that specializes in genetic genealogy analysis.

During a news conference last September, Virginia Deputy Police Chief Cory said a profile had been developed based on DNA taken from the crime scene.

He said that after three years, they managed to create a family tree that led to a familial DNA match, FoxDC5 reports.

Parabon NanoLabs created a digital composite sketch of the suspect, and detectives compared it to a yearbook photo of Smerek when he was 16 and a DMV photo of him when he was 26.

Meanwhile, Smerk had no idea that investigators were close to him and lived with his wife and two teenage children in Niskayuna, a town in Schenectady, New York, where he worked as a software engineer.

Last year, Fairfax County detectives went to his home, where they attacked him while he was taking out the trash and asked for a DNA swab.

He agreed, and Smerk later drove to the Niskayuna police station, where he confessed to police.

During a news conference last September after Smerek’s arrest, Fairfax County Prosecutor Steve Descano said, “This was the type of crime that shocks the community.”

On October 4, in the courtroom, the victim’s family watched as he confessed to murder.

After the hearing, Lauren Ovans, the victim’s niece, said: “He looks like he has no soul.”

Lawrence’s sister, Mary Cowans, told WUSA9 TV News that her sister’s murder “shattered our family for many, many years and it was very difficult and difficult for all of us.”

After seeing Smerek in the courtroom, she said: “I can’t come to terms with this or anything he’s done.”

Smerk is scheduled to be sentenced on March 7 and faces up to 70 years in prison.