Driver's license renewal leads to Georgia cold case murder suspect's arrest in Texas, authorities say

A call about a South Carolina driver's license renewal ended with a woman arrested in Texas for a 17-year-old cold case in Georgia's Gwinnett County, officials say.

Authorities say that Tamaira Angell Smith had been on the run since 2009 before she made a mistake that led to her arrest.

According to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Smith was wanted for the murder of 29-year-old Eyanna Moore, who allegedly received silicone injections from Smith at a Holiday Inn Express. After receiving the injection, Moore suffered medical complications and died at a local hospital shortly after, officials said.

Gwinnett County police charged Smith with practicing medicine without a license. They eventually issued a felony warrant for murder, but were not able to serve it because they couldn't find the Georgia woman.

In November 2018, more than nine years later, officials say an "unknown female," now identified as Smith, obtained a South Carolina driver's license using a stolen identity. The case continued to remain dormant until July 2026, when Smith called the South Carolina DMV, saying that she was trying to renew her license online but saw that an alert had been placed on the account.

"While researching the case, I found the 2018 SCDMV records showing the stolen identity of a woman in South Carolina," Agent Shawn Ludwig said. "We ran her picture through facial recognition software, and that's when we knew our investigative priorities had shifted from identity fraud to murder." 

Ludwig and another agent tracked Smith and the vehicle to McKinney, Texas, authorities said. There, the McKinney Police Department found the vehicle and arrested Smith.

Smith has now been extradited back to Gwinnett County, where she has been charged with first-degree murder.