25 years ago today- Diamond R-4 superintendent missing, Bank of Diamond robbed

Twenty-five years ago today, two events occurred that shook the city of Diamond.

I was in my third year of teaching creative writing at Diamond Middle School when Principal Mark Mayo came to the trailer where I was teaching and said there would be an assembly in the gymnasium seventh hour, giving me no details as to what the topic would be.

When we gathered the next hour, we were told that Dr. Greg Smith, Diamond R-4 superintendent, had disappeared and that the bank had been robbed. Children who normally walked home were told to take a different route if they passed the bank since the area was still cordoned off. 

At first, media reports seemed to link the two events, though later it turned out there was no connection at all. 

Dr. Smith's body was found 11 days later in his car at the bottom of a pond just outside the Diamond city limits. Newton County Coroner Mark Bridges eventually ruled that Dr. Smith, 49, committed suicide and deliberately drove into the pond.

The investigation into Smith's death showed he was between $500,000 and $700,000 in debt and had taken out $3 million in life insurance in the six months before his death.

A search of Smith's computer revealed he had been researching insurance fraud and methods of committing suicide.

As for the bank robbery that occurred the same day Smith disappeared, a man carrying a fake bomb robbed $5,000. After the robbery, with the bomb still in the bank, authorities evacuated the facility and the surrounding block and brought in the bomb squad, which determined it was a fake. The fake bomb forced Diamond school officials to cancel the annual parade of elementary student in their Halloween costumes.

Smith was eliminated as a suspect in the bank robbery when surveillance video and eyewitness descriptions simply did not match him and the $5,000 wouldn't have made a dent in his debt. Plus, the investigation that Smith's vehicle and his final movements did not put him anywhere near the bank when the robbery took place.

As far as I can determine, no one was ever arrested for the bank robbery despite an extensive investigation by the FBI and local authorities.