Mother of 2 Murders Fiancé to “Escape” Mounting Debts: "She Had to Find a Way Out"

When police entered the Levering, Michigan home of Trent Mallory and his fianceé, Amber Smith, on March 6, 2014, they found the place was in disarray. Clothes, books, and food were thrown everywhere, as if the family had been robbed. And in the bedroom, 35-year-old Trent Mallory was shot dead, laying in his bed.

Smith called 911 around 10:35 a.m., claiming she’d returned home from taking one son to school and the other to the doctor, before stopping for food and to see her sister. Upon returning home, she found the door was open.

Mallory and Smith had been together for more than five years and had one child together, as well as another child Mallory was raising as his own.

“Trent and Amber very much seemed to love each other,” said Trey Sullivan, Smith’s nephew, on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins. “They never were officially married, but you’d have never known looking in from the outside.”

But as police looked deeper into Smith and Mallory’s family and finances, they discovered their relationship wasn’t as perfect as Smith portrayed it.

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“Trent was becoming more and more aware of their financial situation,” said J.L. Sumpter, detective sergeant with the Emmet Co. Sheriff’s Office, on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins. “He was learning about loans that were unpaid. So, he’s starting to piece this together. We’re starting to see why this murder could have possibly occurred.”

Police discover a motive for Trent Mallory's murder

Trent Mallory’s murder wasn’t the first time the family had been on the news. In June 2008, when Smith’s son, Marshall, was a baby, they found out he needed a heart transplant. After 10 months of waiting in the hospital, he had a successful heart transplant at 18 months old. But with that health issue came large hospital bills, and the family had raised 10 to 15 thousand dollars through crowdfunding to help.

Despite the assistance from the public, the family’s home was under foreclosure at the time of Mallory's murder, and there was also credit card debt.

“Towards the end of their relationship, I want to say four or five months, I could see there was something wrong with Trent,” said Angela White, Mallory’s sister, on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins. “The fun-loving, fun-going person that Trent was started to dwindle to where he kept himself more isolated. We still talked on the phone or whatever, but he was always working. To me, I didn’t understand why he had to work so hard.”

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Police learned that just days before his murder Mallory received a call from a loan company.

“We learned that there was a loan that was taken out in Trent’s name and the company was actively trying to find Trent,” Sumpter said. “Trent had told them that he had no idea that there was a loan out there and was very upset that loan was actually taken out in his name.”

Police soon realized the reason Amber Smith had taken out a loan in Mallory’s name without his knowledge.

“Amber liked to gamble on her phone, so she had a bunch of iTunes purchases, and she was ringing up several thousand dollars in different gambling apps and things,” said Mark Harris, detective sergeant with the Michigan State Police, on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins.

“As we dug deeper, it turns out she’s not only gambling on her phone, she’s gambling at the casino,” added Stuart Fenton, chief assistant prosecutor for Emmet Co., on Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins. “Amber was spending over $25,000 at the casino within a year or so of the murder. That’s where all the money went.”

Amber Smith was under increasing pressure, as her fiancé began to learn the truth.

“She had this whole underworld of gambling going on outside of Trent’s knowledge,” Harris said. “Made this situation more and more volatile for her, that she had to find an escape route. She had to find a way out. All the debt they had was in Trenton’s name. There was nothing in her name. So, if Trenton was out of the picture, it was a clean slate for her.”

Police find the weapon that killed Trent Mallory in an unusual place

The medical examiner concluded the weapon that killed Trent Mallory appeared to be a .22 caliber rifle, shot at less than three feet away from him. His approximate time of death was 9 a.m. Officers learned Mallory ran a flipping business on the side for extra money, and it often included weapons. A few days before he was killed, he’d been in talks to buy a .22 rifle. But Amber Smith said the transaction never happened and was unable to name the seller.

“She was extremely vague,” Harris said. “The interesting part about it was she could name other names but could never name that person.”

Police got a break on locating the murder weapon when Amy Sullivan, Amber’s sister, called a month after the murder to say she’d made a discovery in her front yard.

“At that point, the snow was melting, and as the snow was melting, [she] thought it was the handle of the shovel, and in fact she learned it was a .22,” Sumpter said.

Police believed it was no coincidence the murder weapon was found in Smith’s sister’s yard. A casing found in the bed with Mallory matched the gun found in the snowbank, and a fingerprint on the gun matched Smith. The gun matched the one that Mallory was contemplating flipping before his murder.

“There was a lot of snow there. The fact that it was concealed in Amy’s snowbank made sense to me based on Amber’s alibi describing how she just randomly stopped there the morning of Trent’s homicide,” Harris said.

On April 21, 2014, Smith was charged with her fiancé’s murder.

“She didn’t want the community to know that all the money that they raised for her son Marshall is gone, and if Trent goes away then nobody needs to find out about that stuff,” White said.

The jury only took one hour to convict her of murder. Amber Smith was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Trent Mallory’s parents have custody of both boys.