THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 19, 1995 TAG: 9508190038
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
Family and friends of murder victim Betty Anne Smolka are waging a battle to keep her husband, Thomas Smolka, the former Virginia Beach lawyer and real estate developer convicted in her death, behind bars.
Last week, a Florida state appeals court reversed Thomas Smolka's 1993 jury conviction in Ocala for first-degree murder. The three-judge panel ruled that the circumstantial nature of the case did not justify the conviction.
It was a legal move that shocked and saddened many of those who loved Betty Anne. They are now going door-to-door and launching a letter-writing campaign to support a rehearing and perhaps a Florida Supreme Court review of the case.
In the opinion, the Florida state appeals court wrote: ``There is no doubt that the State's case against Smolka creates a strong suspicion that he murdered his wife. The number of suspicious circumstances is especially troubling. But suspicions cannot be the basis of a criminal conviction.''
The Attorney General's Office has until Aug. 24 to file notice asking the District Court to have the full appeals panel hear the case or to certify it to the state Supreme Court. The defense then has 10 days to reply.
The attorney general also could petition the state Supreme Court directly.
Thomas Smolka, who is being held in Union Correctional Institute, a maximum-security prison in Raiford, Fla., has declined to be interviewed.
He was part-owner of the Ocala Radisson Inn when his wife disappeared on July 10, 1991. He had sent her to a local Phar-Mor store to buy light bulbs and grease pencils for the hotel.
Betty Anne Smolka's rented van was found parked across the street the next day, its interior spattered with blood. Three days after that, roller bladers found her body near a dirt road in an abandoned, half-completed subdivision west of the city. She had been shot twice in the chest.
Prosecutors told jurors that the case against Smolka was circumstantial. Despite a massive and meticulous investigation, no direct physical evidence ever was found to link him to his wife's killing. Instead, prosecutors focused on Smolka's desperate financial situation and on the fact that he had insured his wife's life for $500,000.
Defense attorneys said they had argued all along that there was a reasonable and legitimate basis for a hypothesis of innocence.
Ocala Prosecutor Ric Ridgway has talked to members of the grassroots effort to keep Smolka in prison and is aware of their letter-writing campaign.
``Sometimes courts change what they've done,'' he said Friday. ``Whether they do it because of public outcry, you never really know. I don't know if it will help, but it can't hurt.'' MEMO: A rally is scheduled for 4 p.m. Sunday in the Cox High School
football stadium. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Thomas Smolka
by CNB