The Con That Fooled America: How Killer Edgar Smith Manipulated the Elite
In 1971, Edgar Smith walked out of prison a free man after spending over 14 years on death row for the brutal 1957 murder of 15-year-old Victoria Zielinski. Bludgeoned to death with rocks and a baseball bat, Zielinski’s case had seemed open and shut. Yet, through sheer cunning and persuasion, Smith managed to convince powerful allies—including famed conservative intellectual William F. Buckley Jr.—that he had been wrongly convicted. But was it all an elaborate lie?
For years, Smith waged an unrelenting campaign from behind bars, filing 19 appeals and penning a book, Brief Against Death, that detailed his supposed wrongful conviction. His case caught the attention of Buckley, the influential founder of National Review, after a 1962 newspaper article mentioned that Smith was an avid reader of the magazine. Buckley, impressed by Smith’s intelligence and eloquence, struck up a correspondence that would change the trajectory of Smith’s life—and, ultimately, tarnish Buckley’s own reputation.
By 1964, Buckley had organized a legal defense fund for Smith, believing that someone so articulate and intelligent couldn’t possibly be a brutal killer. In 1965, after personally visiting Smith in prison, Buckley wrote an article in Esquire questioning the legitimacy of his conviction. Smith’s confession, he argued, had been coerced, and his conviction vacated on appeal thanks to new Supreme Court rulings on self-incrimination. With the legal system on his side and the backing of influential supporters, Smith was granted a retrial.
In a shocking turn of events, Smith struck a deal: he entered a plea of non vult—a no-contest plea—to the killing of Zielinski. Sentenced to 25 to 30 years, he was credited with time served, good behavior, and had his remaining years suspended. Just like that, Edgar Smith, once the longest-serving death row inmate, walked out of prison. Two limousines were waiting—one for him and Buckley, and another for his lawyers and supporters. The first stop? A taping of Firing Line, where Smith once again professed his innocence.
For the next five years, Smith basked in the limelight. He became a sought-after prison reform advocate, appearing on talk shows, writing op-eds, and delivering speeches. He remarried, moved to California, and seemed to have successfully rewritten his own history. But the facade wouldn’t last forever.
In 1976, the real Edgar Smith re-emerged in horrifying fashion. He abducted and stabbed Lefteriya Lisa Ozbun in San Diego. Miraculously, she escaped and later testified against him. This time, there were no appeals, no influential friends fighting for his freedom. In court, Smith finally confessed—not just to attacking Ozbun, but to the murder of Victoria Zielinski.
“For the first time in my life, I recognized that the devil I had been looking at for the last 43 years was me,” he admitted. “I recognized what I am, and I admitted it.”
So how did a convicted murderer manage to dupe some of the most intelligent minds in America? According to Louis B. Schlesinger, a forensic psychology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the answer lies in Smith’s intelligence.
“People often equate high IQ with a lack of dangerousness—and that’s not true,” Schlesinger explains. “Even Buckley, one of the smartest men in the world, advocated for Smith because he thought someone this intelligent couldn’t be guilty.”
Sarah Weinman, author of Scoundrel, a book about Smith’s manipulations, describes his writing as eerily convincing. “Even when you know all the facts, his words suck you into his world. It’s easy to see how he fooled Buckley, his editor Sophie Wilkins, and many others.”
Even Jack Carley, a law student in Buckley’s circle who worked on Smith’s case, admits they had been deceived. After Smith’s second arrest and conviction, Buckley confided in Carley, lamenting, “We were had.”
Carley, however, refuses to see their advocacy as a mistake of intellect. “The system didn’t work, and we had a duty to correct it. This wasn’t a mistake of the head—it was a mistake of the heart.”
Buckley himself never spoke publicly about the Smith debacle again. After a single article for Life magazine summarizing the betrayal, he went silent.
The case of Edgar Smith raises troubling questions: How many others have manipulated the system in the same way? How many truly innocent people never get the same chance? And in an era of mass incarceration, why did Smith—a white, articulate, and well-connected man—become a cause célèbre when so many others are forgotten?
In a final twist of irony, it was Buckley who ultimately helped bring Smith down. On the run after attacking Ozbun, Smith called Buckley’s office. His secretary took the message, and Buckley contacted the FBI, leading to Smith’s arrest.
Edgar Smith died in prison in 2017, at the age of 83. But his story remains a cautionary tale: sometimes, the most dangerous people aren’t the ones who lurk in the shadows—they’re the ones who can talk their way into our trust.
