Father of alleged killer testifies against him

Nov. 6—CANTON — Alleged double murderer Adam W. Smith's father testified against him Wednesday morning.

Also on Wednesday, two employees at the bank where William M. Freeman had his checking account said someone called them on the afternoon Freeman was killed claiming to be him, but the number was one that evidence showed is Smith's. A woman who was selling cars in Gouverneur at the time of the murder said Smith tried to trade in Freeman's truck that same afternoon.

Later in the afternoon, one of the two people who found Freeman dead told the jury what he saw that afternoon.

Smith, 48, is charged in a 14-count indictment with murdering 72-year-old Ronald E. "Huck" Durham on Feb. 11, 2023, in East Riverside Cemetery, Gouverneur. It also charges him with killing 67-year-old William M. Freeman, Willy or Bill to those close to him, in Freeman's Rossie home on March 1, 2023.

Smith is represented by attorney Brian P. Barrett of Lake Placid. The prosecutors are District Attorney Gary M. Pasqua and assistant district attorneys Alexander Nichols, Sasha Mascarenhas and Matthew Peabody.

George Smith, Adam Smith's father, testified against his son Wednesday afternoon. He told jurors that later on March 1, 2023, Adam Smith showed up at his house in Lake Placid and asked him to store two guns that the prosecution contends were stolen from Freeman after he was stabbed to death.

"He asked me would I keep two of his guns because he was going out of town. He mentioned he was going to New York City to work," George Smith said. "He brought them in and I put them in two of my cases and I put them up in my loft."

After George Smith heard his son was arrested, he contacted a relative, Sgt. Chad Blinn of the Lake Placid Police Department.

"I asked Chad about them and he said I should turn them in," the elder Smith said. He said Blinn contacted New York State Police, who sent investigator Shannon Lind to collect the two firearms. He went with her to give a sworn statement.

George Smith said when his son visits, he usually calls and then stays for a short while, 10 to 15 minutes, and leaves. He said that Adam Smith's behavior on the day he left the guns didn't strike him as odd.

"Does he usually stop off and drop off a couple firearms to you?" Pasqua asked. "No, just that one time," George Smith answered.

The Upstate National Bank workers who testified about Freeman's debit card are Robin Bango and Shannon Smith, who is not related to the defendant or his father. They work at the bank's Philadelphia branch. Bango, the head teller said she knew Freeman well, having first met him about 25 years ago. Smith, the bank manager, is Freeman's niece.

Bango told the jury that at 1:12 p.m. on March 1, 2023, a call came in with the caller claiming to be Freeman. She said she knew right away it wasn't him because she'd spoken to him often and knows his voice both in person and over the phone.

"I knew immediately it wasn't William Freeman," Bango said. She added that the caller ID showed "wireless caller" and Freeman would call the bank from his home landline.

"He identified himself as William Freeman and said he was calling to reset the PIN on his debit card ... I knew it wasn't William Freeman," Bango said from the witness stand.

She said she told the caller, who phone records showed was calling from Smith's cell phone number, he needed to do that in person.

"The manner [the caller] was speaking to me in was formal," Bango said. She said Freeman was informal and often flirty.

"He would [say], 'Hi hon, calling to get my balance.' I think he would probably know he'd have to come in to get his PIN reset. He'd call you a 'gorgeous ravishing creature'" and ask "how was your day?" Bango said, adding that there was always light conversation with Freeman before he got to his reason for calling.

After getting the call claiming to be Freeman, Bango said she went into Smith's office and told her someone had her uncle's debit card.

Smith testified that she tried to call Freeman at both his home and cellular numbers, but she wasn't able to reach him and left messages. Then she froze Freeman's accounts.

Bango said Shannon Smith then called the number back but no one answered. Eight minutes later, Bango said, the number called back and she answered.

"In that time, he said he was Adam and he was William's nephew," Bango testified. "He said that the earlier phone call he was with his uncle because his uncle's phone was not working."

She added that the person on that call, which lasted 67 seconds, said he "was going to see him later that night and he'd have his uncle call."

The next day, Shannon Smith testified, she had a notification that someone had tried to use Freeman's debit card, but it was declined since she'd frozen the account.

"I went to look at his account to see if it had been used at all. There was an invalid transaction," she said.

Someone had attempted to use the card at 8:37 p.m. at the Circle K in Star Lake, but she wasn't able to say who tried to use it. Later in the day, the store manager, Tanya Lutz, testified and said she saw Smith try to use the card to buy fuel but it was denied. She said he came into the store and paid for the gas with cash, which jurors saw on surveillance footage from the Circle K.

Smith told jurors that she called her mother and father to go check on him. She said her father went to the trailer, noticed Freeman's truck was gone and there were no tire tracks, and left.

"Do you know if Bill would ever have lent his truck to somebody?" Barrett asked during cross examination. "No he would not," Shannon Smith replied.

The first witness Wednesday was Amber Finnerty. She and her husband own the Oxbow Country Store and she works there seven days a week.

Finnerty told the jury that she sold Freeman cigarettes just hours before he was killed.

"He was an everyday customer, sometimes multiple times a day, very friendly," Finnerty said.

She said she was late for work that day and "Willy was there waiting for me."

"About 7:15 (a.m.) he was parked across the road waiting for his cigarettes," she recalled. Later on, she told the jury that Freeman always came to the store alone and never saw anyone else driving his truck.

Finnerty said that same day, Adam Smith came to the store a little later on riding with Huck Durham's brother Danny Durham. She said Danny Durham had cancer, was on oxygen, and had trouble walking so Smith pumped $20 worth of gas into Durham's truck and went inside to pay for it.

Finnerty said she knew Durham and Smith, but hadn't seen them together before that day. At the time, Smith and Durham were living in the same residence.

Finnerty also said she'd seen Smith and Freeman talking together outside the store. She couldn't recall the exact date, but said it was before March 1, 2023.

"Mr. Smith had explained he did odd jobs and Mr. Freeman was just a talkative guy. They were talking about a little bit of everything," Finnerty testified. "Later on, [Smith] came back to the store and asked me if I knew where Mr. Freeman lived."

She said she told Smith she wasn't sure where Freeman lived, but told him the general direction to go toward his home and that he lived in a multi-colored trailer.

Nicole Law, another prosecution witness, was a sales representative at Blevins Ford in Gouverneur at the time of the Freeman murder. She told jurors that Smith showed up there between 2 and 4 p.m. and tried to trade in Freeman's truck.

"He came into the building asking for a utensil to scrape off a registration," Law said, which struck her as odd. She said in the short time she worked at the dealership, she never saw anyone else do that. "He was very fidgety, talking very fast. He was pacing. He seemed in a hurry to leave."

She said the truck had hay and cornstalks in the bumper and undercarriage, "like it was driven through a field."

"He said he does construction for his job and at times has to drive through a field or tall grass," Law said. She said a supervisor appraised Freeman's truck at between $25,000 and $30,000 trade in value and took photos of it, which were shown to the jury.

Law also told jurors that her encounter with Smith, and learning its connection to the murder of Freeman, triggered her to quit in June 2023.

"In all honesty I was terrified of something like this happening again," she told the jurors when asked why she quit.

James Mandigo, Freeman's neighbor and good friend, talked about going to the trailer on March 2, 2023 with Freeman's brother Michael Freeman and finding him dead.

Mandigo said he plowed Freeman's driveway that day around noon.

"There was no tracks, nothing in the driveway. I figured he was gone, truck was gone. I plowed the driveway and went home," he said. Not long afterward, Michael Freeman came and picked Mandigo up after Mike Freeman had learned friends and relatives had been trying to reach William Freeman to no avail.

Mandigo said when he and Mike Freeman went back to the trailer, he "saw different tracks in the driveway, there was no tracks there" when the snowplowing was done.

"I saw footprints in the driveway that weren't there (earlier). I said don't step on it, something's going on. It wasn't Willy's feet because he had big feet," Manidgo said.

He said the pair went inside, found William Freeman dead, slouched over the bathtub, exited the house and called 911.

"I seen the body humped over the edge of the bathtub that looked like Willy," he told the jury.

The final witness to take the stand Wednesday was state trooper Justin Seymour. He said he found Freeman's cell phone at a parking area on U.S. Route 11 at the Jefferson-St. Lawrence County line. He said he figured out who owned it, and went to Freeman's trailer to return it, but it appeared no one was home. He said he had no reason to believe any crime had been committed, so he took the phone for safe keeping at the Gouverneur state police station.

The trial resumes at 9:30 a.m. Thursday with more witnesses for the prosecution.