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Just over a year after Linda Collins lost her bid to retain her seat in the Arkansas State Senate in a May, 2018 primary election, she lost her life.
The 57-year-old was found by her son and father in June of 2019, stabbed to death and shoved under a tarp outside her Pocahontas, Arkansas home, in a grisly murder that shocked the community.
At the time, Collins had just gone through a bitter divorce and was hoping to start a new chapter as a political lobbyist after losing her seat in the state senate. Her death sparked a series of political conspiracy theories, but her surprising killer eventually came into focus for investigators after the attacker was unexpectedly captured clutching a bloody knife in a surveillance camera image.
“That was a high-five moment for all of us,” Randolph County Sheriff Kevin Bell told Dateline: Secrets Uncovered in the episode titled “The Hands of a Killer.”
Who was Linda Collins?
The Arkansas native first made a name for herself as a successful real estate agent, purchasing and running two Pocahontas hotels with her second husband Phil Smith, a respected judge.
In 2010, her life took another successful turn when she decided to run for public office, first earning a seat in the Arkansas State House of Representatives before later being elected to the Arkansas State Senate.
Although she only stood about 5 feet tall, Collins, a Democrat turned conservative Republican, was known in the Senate chamber as the “linebacker” for her unrelenting spirit.
“If she knew she was right, she would fight to the very end,” remembered Arkansas State Senator Gary Stubblefield. “She would not give up.”
But Collins lost her bid to hold onto her seat in the State Senate in a 2018 primary. At the same time, her 23-year marriage to Smith was coming to an end as the two bitterly battled it out in court over money and their businesses, according to Dateline: Secrets Uncovered.
Linda Collins’ family unable to reach her
Collins didn’t let the setbacks keep her down for long. By the end of May of 2019, the grandmother and mom of two was eyeing a new job in Washington, D.C. as a political lobbyist, and she was even dating a new man.
But when her adult daughter Tate Williams was unable to reach her mom for days, Williams contacted her brother Butch Smith to have him stop by their mother’s Pocahontas, Arkansas, home to check on her.
The first time Butch went by the home, he didn’t find anything unusual — although there was no sign of his mom. But when Butch returned the next day with his grandfather on June 4, 2019, the pair went inside the house and made a chilling discovery.
They found a large, dark stain on the floor of the kitchen, which was being renovated at the time, that looked like blood. Then, outside in front of the house, they noticed a strange smell coming from a spot on the driveway where construction materials had been covered with a large tarp.
Linda Collins’ body found by her son
Butch walked over to lift the tarp up and found his mom’s body wrapped in a comforter. She was laying face down with her arms above her head.
“I just threw the tarp down and my grandpa was coming over and I said, ‘Listen uh.’ I was like, ‘You can’t — you can’t. I found her,'” Butch remembered. “I said, ‘You can’t — you can’t go over there.’ And he tried and I physically shoved him back.”
According to Bell, Collins suffered “multiple stab wounds.” After arriving on the scene that night, the seasoned investigator also noticed that someone had taken down cameras that had once been installed outside Collins’ property and inside the home.
Investigators speak to Rebecca “Becky” O’Donnell
To piece together Collins’ last days alive, investigators sat down with those closest to her, including her personal assistant turned hotel manager Rebecca “Becky” O’Donnell and her fiancé, Tim Loggains, who was one of Collins’ close friends.
“She was my best friend,” O’Donnell told detectives of Collins through tears.
She told authorities that she’d picked Collins up at the airport after a job interview in Washington D.C. on May 27, 2019 and drove her home. O’Donnell added that the next day, Collins texted her, asking her to bring lunch to the house. O’Donnell said that the two friends had gotten into a squabble after disagreeing about how Collins was approaching a new romance, and she then left the house.
O’Donnell told authorities that she talked to Collins one last time on the phone later that day.
When it came to identifying possible suspects in the slaying, O’Donnell and Loggains both pointed the finger at Phil.
“Linda was scared to death of him,” Loggains said in his interview with investigators, adding that he’d helped her install those cameras at the house after the divorce battle had gotten particularly nasty.
But Phil told detectives and Dateline that he would never have harmed Collins.
“I understand that as a former spouse coming out of a bitter divorce, I had to be the initial prime suspect,” Phil said in a statement to Dateline. “I knew that I did not commit, solicit, desire or have any knowledge of the terrible deed.”
Investigators were able to rule Phil out and they also eliminated Collins’ new boyfriend as a suspect.
Authorities get break in case
In the days after Collins’ death, questions began to swirl in the public about whether it had been part of a grander political conspiracy.
But authorities finally got the break they needed in the case on the day of her scheduled memorial service.
Although surveillance cameras were missing from Collins’ home, investigators were able to get a warrant for footage that the cameras captured that day from the company who made them.
An outdoor camera not only captured Collins’ final blood-curdling screams, but cameras also caught footage of O’Donnell inside the house packing up the cameras and a large bloody knife.
Bell and other investigators took O’Donnell into custody as she was riding with Loggains to the memorial service.
Rebecca “Becky” O’Donnell had been stealing money
It came out that Collins’ father had noticed that money went missing from his account, which Collins had access to, in the days leading up to her death.
Investigators later learned that O’Donnell had forged her boss’ signature to steal money from that account and others. They believed she’d stolen upwards of $50,000 from Collins while working for her.
“We believe that mom had confronted her about the stolen money from my grandpa’s account and probably had found some other money from the motel that was missing,” Butch explained. “I think mom confronted her about it, and in a fit of rage between the two of them, then [O’Donnell] grabbed a knife and killed her.”
Becky O’Donnell accused of additional crimes
O’Donnell’s shocking alleged crimes didn’t end there. While behind bars awaiting trial, O’Donnell — who was accused in 2007 of trying to have her then-husband killed — was also accused of trying to solicit the murder of others central to the Collins case.
Multiple jailhouse informants came forward to report that O’Donnell had tried to recruit them to kill Phil and stage his death to look like a suicide, in a misguided attempt to point the blame for Collins’ murder on him. O’Donnell had also allegedly hoped to get rid of Phil’s new wife, the judge assigned to her case, and the prosecutor at the time.
What happened to Rebecca “Becky” O’Donnell?
In an effort to avoid the death penalty, O’Donnell agreed to plead guilty to first-degree murder in Collins’ death and pleaded no contest to two additional charges of solicitation to commit murder.
She was sentenced in August of 2020 to 50 years behind bars.
Loggains, who had once staunchly stood behind his fiancée, now believes she’s “the world’s greatest actress or a sociopath” for fooling him and others in her orbit.
As for Collins’ family, they are choosing to remember her in happier moments.
“She just loved people and she loved life and she just lived it to the fullest,” Williams said of her mom.
