Mark Alan Smith (born June 27, 1949) is an American serial killer who killed at least four women in Illinois and Arkansas during the 1960s, and was sentenced to 500 years' imprisonment for three of the deaths.
Smith later confessed to killing eight women while stationed as a soldier in West Germany, for which he was never prosecuted, and authorities believe he could be involved in other murders, both in the US and overseas.
In 1966, Smith was enlisted in the Army during the Vietnam War and stationed in West Germany, where, in 1967, he was court-martialed for assaulting four African-American colleagues.
All of this occurred in the nearby city of Mountain Home,[2] where Smith worked as a handyman at a TV repair shop.
Three days later, her body was found in a partially frozen creek near one of the town's bridges, having been sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple times.
[2] On February 27, 1970, Smith was working at the Resin Research Laboratory, part of the Desoto Chemical Company, situated in Mount Prospect.
Taking the opportunity to follow her into the basement, Smith began making sexual advances on her, which Bolyard resisted.
The next day, her naked body was found by a young couple on a beach, lying motionless at the Lakeland Park subdivision.
Smith admitted that he raped and strangled Lingenfelter, later inserting a beer bottle in both her vagina and rectum after she had died.
[1] The murders of Bianchi and Lingenfelter had shocked the population of McHenry, and large amounts of people aided in the search for the killer—one of them being Mark Alan Smith himself.
[1] On April 27, 1977, Smith was caught trying to escape from the Pontiac Correctional Center through the boiler room, to which he later pleaded guilty and was given another 18 years.
[1] Smith currently remains incarcerated at Pontiac, where he earns an income through selling oil paintings to guards, and is currently studying for his third college degree.