It has been almost 14 years since Nikki Goeser‘s life was ceaselessly modified on the night of April 2, 2009. That was the fateful evening a person named Hank Smart fatally shot her loving husband in Nashville, Tennessee, and she or he now fears his early launch may enable him to terrorize her once more.
“I believe the possibilities for recidivism are extraordinarily excessive with Hank Smart,” she tells RadarOnline.com solely because the convicted killer is scheduled to be freed in 2028 on early-release “good habits credit.”
Nikki instructed RadarOnline.com that she has acquired a minimum of 9 “sick, twisted” love letters — that she is aware of of — from Smart whereas he has been behind bars. “That is obsession that has lasted a few years.”
Earlier than his homicide, Nikki and sufferer Ben Goeser had been a fortunately married couple who usually hosted karaoke at native bars. She mentioned they had been planning to begin a household and really a lot trying ahead to their subsequent chapter of life collectively.
The brilliant future that they had envisioned by no means got here to fruition after a type of clients developed a crush on Nikki, and it took a sinister flip.
“I can not actually pinpoint for you precisely when the stalking began as a result of fairly frankly, I am not precisely positive,” she instructed RadarOnline.com in an unique interview. “I did not really understand it till that very evening that Ben was murdered.”
That night, Smart had pushed farther than traditional to attend a karaoke occasion that Nikki was at. “I made it clear I would like nothing to do with him and he is right here. This isn’t good,” she instructed us.
Ben had taken over internet hosting duties that night and was standing by the laptop computer as Nikki watched from behind a wall whereas Smart was in search of her, she defined.
After being requested to go away by a supervisor, Smart mentioned he needed to go to the toilet, though he had simply gone moments earlier than.
“That is when he began to again up and unzip his jacket,” Nikki defined. Smart pulled a .45 from his shoulder holster and shot Ben a number of instances, killing him in entrance of his spouse and a crowd of individuals.
Smart was finally convicted of second-degree homicide in Davidson County Felony Courtroom in April 2012 and subsequently sentenced to 23 years in jail.
“It was like a three-day trial and it was a bench trial, so there was no jury. The assassin will get to decide on that,” Nikki mentioned. “Decide [Seth] Norman, after listening to every little thing, determined to drop it right down to the lesser offense.”
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Nikki later realized in October 2019 that Smart had been sending her letters for years from jail, mailing them to her former legal professional who had represented her in her wrongful dying go well with towards him, which she received.
“It made me need to throw up. You’re feeling bodily in poor health. It is simply trauma on prime of trauma and , it made me nearly really feel just like the evening Ben was killed,” she instructed RadarOnline.com. “I can not even start to let you know what number of extra nightmares I’ve had.”
“All of that got here again. I began having nightmares once more after I had labored so onerous with a therapist.”
Smart was solely charged with one felony for the letters due to the statute of limitations. “That ought to have been 9,” Nikki mentioned.
Nikki revealed that she hasn’t acquired extra letters after being granted Tennessee’s first-ever lifetime order of safety. Regardless of that, she instructed RadarOnline.com that she fears having to look over her shoulder sooner or later if he’s launched early.
“In the event that they set him free, he is already confirmed what he is able to,” she mentioned. “I believe he ought to serve the complete 23 years at really, one hundred pc like he was sentenced to.”