Man who sent emails posing as his San Juan Capistrano business partner he had killed sentenced to life behind bars
A man who killed his friend and business partner at their San Juan Capistrano office and then posed as the dead man through email for months in an attempt to cover up the slaying was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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Edward Shin, convicted late last year of the murder of 33-year-old Chris Smith, told Orange County Superior Court Judge Gregg L. Pricket that because of his actions, “many people’s lives have been ruined, hopes and dreams shattered, including my own. …
“In a moment of panic, I allowed my selfishness to pursue a course of action that is unforgivable,” Shin said. “The hole becomes so deep you can only keep digging.”
In statements read to the court, Smith’s family members said that Shin’s actions have destroyed their lives. Smith’s body has never been found.
“The brutality of this murder and total lack of any remorse … makes me sick to my bones,” Smith’s father wrote. “We have not had any closure, because Edward Shin has not revealed the location of my son’s remains.”
Prosecutors allege that Shin, now 40, killed Smith in 2010 in order to gain control of his money and to get access to a stash of gold coins at Smith’s apartment. A murder weapon was never found.
Shin and Smith had partnered to create 800XChange, a lead-generation company focused on the lucrative debt-consolidation industry. Despite their success, the two became embroiled in a legal battle after Shin admitted to embezzling more than $600,000 from a previous employer.
Shin had settled a criminal case tied to the embezzlement and agreed to pay back $700,000, but needed Smith to sign off on a settlement for a related civil lawsuit. Smith, who had come to distrust Shin, was pushing for new transparency measures in the business end of 800XChange before he would approve the settlement.
On June 4, 2010, the disagreements between the two men came to a head after hours at their San Juan Capistrano office.
Shin either bludgeoned or stabbed Smith to death, prosecutors said, driven by fears that he wouldn’t be able to come up with the money for the settlement, or to maintain a lifestyle that included regular high-stakes gambling trips to Las Vegas.
During his own testimony, Shin described Smith’s death as the result of a fight gone bad.
Shin said he told Smith, who he claimed had first suggested he embezzle from his former employer, that he would tell employees about Smith’s alleged role in the fraud. Shin said Smith attacked him, and then hit his head on a desk in the course of a fight.
Immediately after Smith’s death, Shin sent out an email under Smith’s name to Smith’s attorney with a fake buyout agreement that would give Shin full control over their company.
Over the next six months, Shin sent dozens of emails posing as Smith to Smith’s family and friends, weaving wild, cinematic tales of surfing waves and seeking adventure around the world.
Prosecutors believe Shin used a rented pickup truck to dispose of Smith’s body in a desert near the Mexican border. Shin claims that he hired someone to dispose of the body and doesn’t know where it ended up.
“I promise you I did not want Chris dead,” Shin told the judge on Friday. “If I could find him for them, I would. I don’t know where he is.”
In a tearful statement before the court, Shin’s mother apologized to the Smith family and said she felt some responsibility for her son’s actions.
The judge, after spending a lunch break considering the mother’s words, told her that it is “not your burden to carry. …
“I believe your son was raised in a good family by a loving mother, a loving father,” Prickett said. “At some point, later on in life, he had a decision to make, and he regrets the course he took.”