Background: The Breathitt County Justice Center in Jackson, Ky. (Google Maps). Inset (left): Fairley Napier (Kentucky River Regional Jail). Inset (right): Joanie Campbell-Smith (Deaton Funeral Home).
In a chilling turn of events, a Kentucky man has been convicted for the brutal murder of his former partner, confessing to his child that he was weary of “looking at her.” Fairley Napier, 49, was found guilty by a jury on April 1 on charges including murder, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, and criminal mischief in the tragic case of Joanie Campbell-Smith, who was 45. Campbell-Smith, the mother of Napier’s children, disappeared on January 4, 2024, with Napier being the last person to see her alive. The couple shared two children, one of whom revealed to Kentucky State Police that their father admitted he killed their mother because he was “tired of seeing her lying in the log yard and looking at her.”
Tragically, Campbell-Smith’s charred remains were discovered two days later in a burned-out vehicle that matched the description of the one she typically drove. This vehicle was located on Napier’s property, leading to his surrender to police on January 7, 2024.
During the trial, as reported by The Jackson-Breathitt County Times Voice, Napier recounted his long history with Campbell-Smith, describing a relationship that spanned from 1994 to 2022, marked by periods of separation and reconciliation. He testified that they met at a Jiffy Mart, later relocating to another parking lot. According to his testimony, Campbell-Smith allegedly requested that he break a window in her vehicle, providing her with a reason to drive a Chevy Tahoe acquired with her new husband.
However, the prosecution presented a starkly different narrative. Commonwealth’s Attorney General Miranda King argued that Napier shot Campbell-Smith at the second location, the parking lot. Evidence showed that Napier had purchased a mattock, a tool commonly used for digging and breaking soil, to gain access to the vehicle after the doors had locked.
Napier testified that the last time he saw Campbell-Smith was at the Jiffy Mart.
Prosecutors, however, had evidence that pointed to a different story. The Commonwealth’s Attorney General Miranda King told the court that Napier shot Campbell-Smith at the second location, the parking lot. He bought a mattock — a sharp tool used to loosen up soil — to break into the vehicle after the doors became locked.
Napier then drove the vehicle to its final location, where he dismembered and mutilated Campbell-Smith’s body with the mattock inside the vehicle before setting it on fire. Investigators said they found body tissue belonging to Campbell-Smith all around the scene, including on logging equipment known to belong to Napier.
After the former couple’s daughter told Napier that she could not get hold of her mother, Napier offered to help find her.
King told the court that Napier’s motive to kill Campbell-Smith was jealousy that she remarried, even though Napier was also seeing someone new. According to courtroom testimony, Napier’s new girlfriend showed him pictures of Campbell-Smith with her new husband. King said Campbell-Smith and her husband tried to keep the marriage a secret from Napier because they knew it would make him angry.
In the days after Campbell-Smith went missing, Napier changed vehicles four times and purchased a burner phone. Napier, who told people he was “in a bad frame of mind” after being accused of a crime, eventually admitted to killing Campbell-Smith to a friend and then to his daughter.
In the phone call to his daughter, Napier confessed to burning the dead body of his former common-law wife after saying “he had gotten tired of seeing her lying in the log yard and looking at her.”
Napier and his defense attorney rejected a plea deal in February. On April 1, he was convicted of murder, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, and criminal mischief. The jury recommended concurrent sentences that added up to a total of 45 years in prison.
The sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 8.
