True Crime All The Time - Byron David Smith

Episode Date: November 26, 2018

On Thanksgiving Day, 2012, Byron Smith shot and killed two teenagers who broke into his house. He was a decorated veteran of the Vietnam war and a retired US State Dept employee with a spotless record. But Smith was paranoid after his house had been burglarized a number of times. Because of this, he had an audio recorder that captured the shootings. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the killings of 18-year-old Hailee Kifer and 17-year-old Nicholas Brady at the hands of Byron Smith. This case became a lightening rod for the debate about where the line was between defending yourself and your property and murder. Smith's own audio recordings and his subsequent interviews with police became the centerpiece of the State's case against him.You can help support the show by going to patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationPlease help support our Sponsors:Simplisafe - Go to simplisafe.com/tcatt to get a special holiday offer on fantastic home securityBuffy - Get $20 off the best comforter you'll ever sleep with at buffy.co using our promo code tcatttBetter Help - Get 10% off your first month of online counseling at betterhelp.com/tcatt using our promo code tcattSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 106 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson, Gibby. How are you? Man, I'm good. I'm doing all right. You're doing all right, but you're under the weather. Yeah, maybe I'm lying a little bit.

Yeah. You're playing hurt. You're playing hurt. You got bronchitis. I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to get episodes out this week. We had originally talked about taking this week off and then we thought, no, we'll put out episodes and then you got bronchitis. We kept having to push it back, push it back.

But I think today you're definitely not at 100%, but you're way better than you were earlier. Oh, yeah, yeah, big difference between even just one day. Yeah. So we will get through these and put out some episodes. Yeah. Let's start with our Patreon shoutouts. Okay. We had Nancy and Gwen.

Hey, Nancy and Gwen. She upped her already existed. support to above our highest level. That's amazing. Yeah, it's great. Mariel McFarland. Maryle, McFarlane. See, I can't do it.

I'm trying. The accents are not going to be good this week. No, I can't do it when you're sick. When I'm sick, you can't do it when I'm sick. You know when I'm sick. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I meant.

It might be the mad's kicking in. I might, who knows what I'll say. This could be a really good episode. Yeah. Megan Cartwright. Hey, Megan. Kim Gall. Hey, Kim.

Christy Hull. Oh, thank you. Carrie Peterson. Thank you, Carrie. Megan Maddox. Thank you, MM. Daniel Schumer. Thank you, Daniel.

Christy Pierce. That's awesome. Becky Jones. Cool. Jamie Williams. That's even better. That's even better. That's what I got.

Heather Benjamin. Hey, Heather, Benjamin. How do you usually say, Gibbs? Come on. Benjamin. How do you usually say it? Benjamin. You usually say it Benjamin.

Benjamin. But you're trying hard not to. Sometimes you think I say like, I've been German. Vin German. I get a kick out of it. Claire Collins. Hey, Claire. Callum Neepsie.

Calum. I like that. That is a very cool name. Calum. Jason Layfield. Hey, Jason. Michelle Harriage. Heritage.

Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Jocelyn Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa. Bobby Girl. Just Bobby Girl. Just Bobby Girl. What up, Bobby girl?

We're not really sure what that means, but hey. I don't know. Maybe she likes, her name's Bobby. She's a girl. Or Bobby's girl. You really cracked that case, Sherlock? Well, she could be Bobby's girl, too. Like, hey.

I wish it I had Bobby's girl. My name's Bobby. You're my girl. And now you're going to tell everybody you're my girl. I had Karen Washington. Hey, how you doing? Angelie Hamilton. Kelly Ringle.

Hey, Kelly Ringle. And. get wrinkled up there. And Danny Jordan. Hey, Danny Jordan. And if we go back into the vault, Gibbs, this week we selected Jason Chandler. Hey, Jason. Been with us a long time, long time Patreon supporter.

And we really appreciate that. Appreciate the continued support. We appreciate all the new support. And we had some great PayPal support as well. Well, we had PayPal. PayPal? I like PayPal. Ted Perry.

Oh, Ted Perry. He's a huge fan of the show. Yeah, he's retired up in Denver. area. Yeah, good for you. A lot of interaction with Ted. He reaches out a lot. Brian Monroe. Hey, Brian Monroe. You're getting ready to say Ron Moe. I don't know. It's what it sounded like. It came out fine. Jennifer Winkler. Hey. And Chris Wilder. Hey, Chris Wiedler. He's just called him Wiedler. I met to say Wightler, you know, from the famous Van Wilder. Oh, well, I was going to go with the person that wrote the books, you know, the famous book. Uh, uh, who's, uh, who's, uh, who's, uh, who's,

that? You know that lady, or was it a guy? I don't even remember. You know that lady or was it a guy? It's the meds. It's the meds people. Who's this famous? Wasn't there a famous poet or a famous writer, Wiedler? Like, first of all, it's still not Wiedler. No. It's Wilder. Wilder. Now you called it Wilder. I'm having a hard time speaking. It is going to be an interesting. couple of episodes. Yeah, I know. On TCAT and Unsolved. So Wiedler, Wiedler.

No. Whoever. It's not Wiedler. They wrote a great, they were, the famous book slash Arthur or author and poet. This is bad. I am. I'm leaving it all in. You are going to leave it in.

I'm leaving it. Yeah. Let's just fast forward. Don't pass this place. Don't do a bunch of cough syrups and other medications before you record. Let's fast forward. pass this. Thank you. Well, first of all, let's say happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. To everyone that celebrates that and hope everybody had a good time with family.

Yes. Had some great food. I know I did. Gibbs was sick with the bubonic plague or whatever he has. But I'm overcoming it. He's overcoming it. I'm that strong. He's on so many meds that his normally exemplary vocabulary is under fire at this point in time. and it could get funny. I don't know. It probably will. Or I'll eventually just pass out in this chair and snore. Why, you know.

Why take it home? Why you take it home? Because of Thanksgiving, we decided to do a couple of cases that actually happened on Thanksgiving Day. Yep, we did. And on Unsolved, we're talking about a bombing that occurred in Texas down in the 1980s on Thanksgiving Day. A couple of people were murdered. This was like a briefcase bombing. Yeah, it was.

At a mobile home park. So definitely check that out. Got a lot of twists and turns to it. It's going to be a good episode. And then for the case that we're talking about right now, Byron David Smith. This happened on Thanksgiving Day. Right. In 2012, it was a double murder.

And this is a case Gibbs that for a lot of reasons is, very fascinating. Number one, there is so much audio associated with this case. It's going to be a very audio heavy episode because this guy recorded the killings. And that's very rare to have something like that. We also have a lot of audio from his initial talks with police that provide a lot of insight. But the second reason is it's a case that centers around, you know, a person's right to defend their home. And so it's a case that has divided a lot of people. You know, you've got people on one side of the aisle that think this guy is guilty. He killed these teenagers in cold blood. You've got other people on the other side of the aisle that say, hey, this guy was defending his home

and he had every right to do what he did. I think the listeners can make up their own mind as we go through this case. Right. But there is division. And I wanted to point it out, you know, because this case is not that old. We're only going back to 2012. Right, which is pretty fresh. Yeah.

In our world, right, of true crime, it's a pretty fresh case. So the murders took place in a small Minnesota town called Little Falls. Little Falls has a population of just over 8,000. And so pretty small, little town. Yeah. Well, some people call that small. Some people go out of a big town. Yeah, it depends on where you're from.

Right. You know, it's located in the center of Minnesota. Minnesota. It's the county seat of Morrison County. It's actually one of the oldest cities in Minnesota. Really? Yeah. It was like saying Minnesota.

I know you do. Like we're from Fargo, the movie Fargo, you know? I like the show Fargo. The movie and the show. Yeah, I like the movie too. But I really. dig the show Fargo. Minnesota.

Little Falls was established in 1848. So is that next to Big Falls? Yeah, there's a Little Falls, Big Falls, uh, Medium Falls is right in the middle. Yeah. Well, you kind of work your way through the falls. Yep. So hopefully you go in the right sequence so you don't hurt yourself.

But one of those 8,000 plus residents in 2012 was a 64 year old man named Byron David Smith. And he became the center of this controversy. that we're talking about when he shot and killed two teenagers, 18-year-old Haley Kiefer, and her 17-year-old cousin, Nicholas Brady, on that fateful day in 2012. And again, a little different for us, Gibbs. We're not going to have the same amount of background on Byron that we would have on a lot of serial killers and things like that.

But let's start off talking about him. Byron Smith was born on June 11th, 1948. and he grew up with his parents and brother in Little Falls, Minnesota. He was an Eagle Scout and apparently later in life devoted a lot of his time to the Scouts. So active as a kid continued that later in life and was active in the Scouts helping others. Byron did very well in high school. Graduated second in his class in 1966. He went on to attend the University of Minnesota.

Minnesota for a couple of years. But then he went into the Air Force in 1968. This is Vietnam, right? So he joined the Air Force. And while he was in the Air Force, he received electrical engineering training. And he flew on B-52 bombers in Vietnam. Really? Yeah.

I mean, he was a decorated soldier earned quite a few medals during his service over there. Now, when he got out of the service, he got a job with. with Hughes Aerospace in California. Pretty big deal. Yeah, it's a huge deal, actually. Finished up his engineering degree out there in California, Cal Poly. He later obtained a job with United States State Department as a technical security engineer. And this is a job that would take him all over the world.

A lot of the research talked about the fact that, you know, this job consisted of working at U.S. embassies, designing, installing, monitoring security systems. Basically, his job was to protect the embassies from terrorism and espionage. Well, that's something I would be good at. Yeah, you would. I mean, it's like Jason Bourne in reverse. Like you're trying to keep the Jason Bournes of the world out. Yes, which I can do. I have that level of skill. Well, you can do it both ways. Yeah, I can break in as well, yeah. I can look at you right now and tell how fast I need to run to outrun you. If you're such a badass, why do you need to outrun me?

Why wouldn't you just take me out? If I wanted to. That doesn't seem like a special skill you running away from me. I was just trying to go off what he says in the movie. I'm just messing with you. I got to run like four point some seconds to outrun that guy if I need to. And I know I can do it. Okay.

You don't remember that part? No. Was that even in the movie? I think there was something like that in there. Yeah. What was the name of the movie? One of the born identities. Okay.

Yeah. Just making sure. Yeah. Born supreme. I don't know. Born supremacy. Or that. I was born supreme.

Supreme. All right. Let's get back to Byron. He spent time in over 40 different countries in, I think was what was about a 16-year career with the State Department. Impressive. That's a lot of different countries, 40. You see a lot of things if you have done that for sure. And some of those countries he spent over two years at a clip.

Yeah. That's a pretty good amount of time. That's a long run. And he was living in, you know, big cities like Cairo and Moscow. And, I mean, he was all over the place. Yeah. Very well traveled. No, he was.

But what this really means is that Byron Smith was rarely in the United States while he held this job with the State Department, he was not living in Little Falls, Minnesota. He wouldn't return to his hometown until 2009. So talking a little bit more about this job, highly technical job that he's in. You know, I talked about the security systems, but it was more than that. He focused on building layouts of these embassies, wireless networks. It talked about that, you know, this type of person might have to install secret recording devices. I think the main thing is with this type of job, very high security clearance, it would require a very serious background check.

And I think Gibbs, it's very important to this story, right? Byron Smith had a high security clearance. So he had to go through, number one, an extensive initial background check. Right. which would have included a medical review, including a check for drug and alcohol problems, things like that, they would have interviewed friends, family, neighbors to try to find out anything that was wrong with this guy. I wonder how that would work out if they had to give us security clearance.

Well, first of all, we'd never get it because they would interview each of us on the other. And that right there would probably shut it down. probably would. You're right. There's too many skeletons right there. Yeah. But obviously they didn't find anything wrong. But it's not just the initial check, right? These types of people that hold these jobs, they're checked routinely throughout the years. So it's not a one-time thing. I guess what I'm getting at Gibbs is that the U.S. government checked this man, Byron Smith out repeatedly. They obviously didn't find anything alarming with his character, with his mental, stability, stability, anything like that.

This is much different than the majority of killers that we talk about on this podcast. No, you're right. Right. It's not our standard conversation. No, I mean, normally we're going through all types of red flags in somebody's background, in their childhood, leading up to when they start murdering. It's not the case here. Right. So we fast forward, Smith has retired from his job at the State Department. He's back in

Little Falls, Minnesota, living in the same house that he apparently lived in when he graduated from high school. And you have to talk about this house a little bit because it's, it's a central character in this story. It's somewhat isolated. It's set on over 10 acres of woodland. But Smith had apparently experienced quite a bit of trouble in the years leading up to this double homicide on Thanksgiving Day that we're going to get into. You know, according to him and other neighbors that he had confided in, his home had been broken into quite a few times. I've seen reports that it was six.

I've seen reports that it was many, it was as many as 10. Now, Smith suspected the daughter of one of his neighbors. in this police interview. So you've actually been having problems with people breaking into your house? Is that correct? The same people, the same pattern. It goes back a long time. Okay.

When did that start? When did it start where people were leaving? First time it happened was, I'm guessing, 12 to 15 years ago. And there was a sheriff's report on it when they broke into the garage and tore up a bunch of packing cases through glassware on the floor. on the floor to break it and stole a bunch of clothing. Okay. Now, I try to not be sexist, but when somebody steals clothing and ignores the tools, I tend to think it's a woman.

Okay. What kind of clothing did they take? You remember that time? Woman's clothes or men's clothes? Something different? Military clothes, you know, the kind of unisex stuff that. And not only that, but the following week, Ashley Williams was seen wearing my flight line military jacket from the Air Force to school. And apparently she was not in full possession of her

facilities because she dropped stuff all the way home that Bill collected the next morning. From your house? Yeah, well, stuff that she had collected in her arms and it was falling out of her arms on the way home. So kind of a trail from where she had broken into? That trail of dropped stolen stuff she was taking home. Did that trail of broken, or dropped stuff. Was that in your yard at all? Yeah, it was down the driveway. Okay.

Leading towards their house. So is Ashley Williams a neighbor of yours? Your guesses? My closest neighbor. Okay. So she lives, what, right next door? At the end of my rather large yard. Do you know Ashley's parents at all?

I have tried very hard to avoid them. They're nasty people. So that was our first chance to hear from Byron Smith. And I think, he misspoke in the beginning, Gibbs there. He said 10 to 15 years. I think he meant to say 10 to 15 months. Yeah. I think you're right. Because he's talking about the fact that he thinks it was his young neighbor, you know, his neighbor's daughter that had a hand in this. And he says, I don't, I don't want to be sexist, but I'm going to anyway. Basically what he comes out and says afterwards is is essentially that.

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shootings. Smith made an official report that his home had been burglarized, and he would later say that he told the police about the number of burglaries that he had experienced before, but they would maintain they only had an official record of the October 27th burglary. But there's no doubt that Byron Smith was extremely paranoid by this time. He had installed a closed circuit surveillance system. He wouldn't leave his house. He was essentially had become. a hermit at some point for fear that, you know, someone would break in and rob him again.

He wasn't sleeping, apparently. And he took up the practice of wearing a gun on him at all times around the house in a holster. Really? On his belt. Always ready. Kind of like you. Yeah. I mean, I don't go that far.

But I am always ready. And we're going to talk about that. In total, in all of these robberies, it's been estimated that, well, over $40,000 in cash and guns and, you know, other items were either stolen or vandalized. I say a lot of money. That is a lot of money. So you've heard and suspect that Ashley Williams had been breaking into your place from on different occasions. Is that correct to say?

Yes. Okay. And now in particular, you had an incident that happened just recently at your house. I'm breaking it. Correct. Yeah. When did this happen? That would be about three weeks ago.

Okay. And the break and occurred by kicking in the panel on the basement door. Okay. The panel around the door was, I mean, around was shattered. And then they reached through that panel to open up the dead bolt and the knob lock. Okay. Were you home at the time? Is that?

No. Okay. Do you know what this happened during the day or at night? very specifically, I left to go shopping at St. Cloud 1130 in the morning. And when I came back at 6 o'clock, the place had been thoroughly gone through with the missing items as shown in the report. So there he's definitely talking about the October 27th burglary. What is important to take away from this is that the majority of these burglaries happened during the day.

Very similar to how he explained it, you know, either because he had left the house or so was somebody watching him, they were waiting for him to leave and then they would break in. They would steal stuff. All right, Gibbs. Let's talk a little bit about the two teenagers. Okay. That lost their lives in this incident. Haley Kiefer was an 18 year old senior at Little Falls High School.

Friends described her as a kind girl. Apparently she was a pretty good competitive athlete. But they also said that she was someone who struggled with drug abuse. It's been reported that by the age of 18, she had already experienced 19 different run-ins with the law. That's quite a bit. It's quite a bit. Now, these ranged from simple traffic violations to trespassing, theft,

burglary and some of them had something to do with drugs. So they ran the gamut. Some of them were very minor. Sure. But some of them were more serious. Yeah. Nicholas Brady was a 17 year old who had once attended Little Falls High School with his cousin Haley.

So these two were cousins. Cousins. They were cousins. Yeah. For sure. But at the time that he was killed, he was actually going to another school. He was a junior at Pillager High School. school. He worked at his father's tree trimming business. Now, these were popular kids. Yeah. They were

good looking kids. They were, you know, probably running with the end crowd. Have we ever said that they're bad looking? No. Would we ever say that though? And I will say to that point, I do get some emails saying, why do we always talk about what the females look like and not the males? Yeah. Which I had to disagree with because I've said on any occasions that a man is good looking or I have no problem. I'm very secure in my masculinity. Yeah, you're like, that's a good looking guy. That's a very handsome fellow. That's a beautiful, beautiful man. Now, what I will say is that by proportion, the number of victims that we talk about is higher. The ratio for sure. The ratio is higher with women. There's just no doubt about it.

Yeah. But again, these were two good looking kids, two good looking teenagers. You know, like we say a lot of times, they had their lives ahead of them. But right. The one thing, the caveat I will make is that we're going to be saying some stuff about these teenagers that we normally don't talk about with victims, right? They had their issues. They had some things going on that don't make them. them look great. And we'll get into it with Nick right now. I mean, but let me, let me go back,

right? Popular kids, loved by their family, loved by their friends, had a lot of friends, but there is evidence that Nick Brady had been involved with robbing Byron Smith's home before this fateful Thanksgiving day. It would come out later at a trial for another teen, Cody Casper, it related to the October 27th burglary that Nick Brady was involved in multiple burglaries of Smith's home. Casper gave testimony that he had worked for Byron Smith the summer before doing yard work and that he and Nick had robbed the place multiple times. And just a month after these shootings that were going to talk about occurred, a shotgun

that belonged to Byron Smith, and they figured it out. It came from his house, was found in the possession of another teenager who said he got it from Nick Brady. So again, definitely not, I don't want to talk bad about people that lost their lives, but you have to include these facts. Sure you do. Yeah. You have to look at the whole picture. They do because they're pertinent to the story. Sure they are. So this leads us up to the events of, Thanksgiving Day, November 22nd, 2012. The first thing to talk about is that that morning, Byron Smith moved his truck away from his house, which essentially made it look Gibbs like no one was home.

It's key. Right. Now, it's a point that will be argued later at trial. Smith is in his basement. He pressed the record button on his audio recorder. And this is something that allegedly he. he had been doing every day for weeks, setting up a recorder in case something happened. Okay. So he's kind of set the stage, put the truck away, make it look like he's gone.

But he can park his truck wherever he wants. He can. And we'll talk about it more when we get into the trial. But then Smith sat down in a chair in his basement. He had a 22 revolver on his belt. and he had a Ruger Mini 14 at the ready. And what happened next is caught on the audio that he recorded. All right. Like I said, Gibbs, we've never had any type of audio like this. Right. And what you hear is Nick Brady, break a window at the back of Smith's house.

You can hear the footsteps as he walks down the stairs to the basement. And then you hear Byron Smith shoot him multiple times with the Ruger mini 14. Yeah. And I got to talk a little bit about this mini 14. You know, this is what a lot of people call a rancher's rifle. But it is a rifle that shoots a 223 bullet. You and I have talked about 223s and 556s. Right.

You know, 556 is what the army uses in their. in their M4s and they're, you know, it's what was used like in an M16. Right. Exactly. It's a, it's a rifle round. And I don't know the exact distance from the chair that Byron Smith was sitting in to the stairs, but it can't be far, right? This is in a basement.

Next on the tape, you hear Byron Smith handling a tarp. And this is a tarp that he would lay out and he would drag Nick's, body onto. So again, we're going to get into more of these details as we go along, but just keep this you know, in your mind. Then at the very end of that tape, you can hear him reloading. Yeah. Very clearly.

Yeah. You can. I mean, it's unmistakable. That's the sound of rounds being put into a magazine. Exactly. Yeah. And I think probably the other, and I know you're going to talk about later is when he says you're dead.

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's just. Right. All of, so I'll just preface it by saying all of these tapes are going to be played at trial. Yeah. So it's going to, you know, they're going to be a big part of the trial. Now, it would be somewhere around 10 minutes before Haley Kiefer entered the house searching for her cousin. You know, at one point, you can hear her call out her cousin's name, Nick.

I don't have it on the tape, but you know, that is something that she does. And then she, too, began walking down the basement steps. Oh, I'm sorry about that. It's cute. He was a real pro. A little bit safer. Not totally safe. I'm still shaking a bit, but a little bit safer.

So some of this audio is kind of hard to listen to. You are listening to a person being shot and. killed. Yeah, dying. Yeah. I think this one's probably a little harder than the first one. Well, you can hear her. Yeah. You can hear her. So what happens is so Byron's back in his chair facing the stairs, gun at the ready. You hear Haley's footsteps coming down the stairs. Then you hear a shot from what I believe is the, the mini 14, the rifle. And what sounds like her falling down the stairs. You hear her cry out. And then you hear a click. And that is the rifle jamming. And that's when Byron says, oh, sorry about that. And a real kind of shitty sarcastic tone, sorry, my gun jammed.

There's another click. It almost sounds like he tried again. It jammed. But then you hear multiple shots. And it's believed that this came from his 22, to revolver and he says you're dying and then he calls her a bitch. And then you hear Byron Smith wrestling again with a tarp that he would eventually drag Haley's body onto. And later on, he's going to drag both of these bodies on the tarps into his workshop or his workroom. Now,

one thing I definitely want to say, Gibbs, this audio is much longer, right? The events didn't happen as quickly as they sound. like they did on the tape, but for the sake of time, I had to, you know, kind of put them together in a much more, you know, concise audio. But now let's hear some audio from the recording that I think gives you some insight into Smith's mindset. I don't see that. It's all fun. exciting. I'm talking something. It's begging. It's like

begging to ask she is because I try to be a d. I'm a sucker. They think I'm there for them to take advantage of. Is that the reward for being a good person? And then they dump this pest on me. And they take slice after slice out of me. $5,000. $5,000 slice, $10,000 slice. And if I gather enough evidence, it might be prosecuted. If they're prosecuted, it might go to court. If it goes to court, they might be found guilty. If they're found guilty, they might spend six months, two years in jail, and then they're out and they need money worse than ever, and they're filled with revenge. I cannot live a life like that. I cannot have that chewing on me for the rest of my life. I cannot. I refuse to live with that level of fear in my

life. I refuse to live with a level of fear in my life. So I actually think this part of the tape is extremely important. You know, in the beginning, you hear him talk about the fact that he didn't see them as human, right? He called them vermin. And then when you get into, okay, if they're prosecuted, they do six months, they do two years, but then they're out. And you hear him say, I cannot live with.

that level of fear. He's not talking about the fear of them breaking into their house at that exact moment in time. He's talking about the fear that they would be prosecuted and then get out later. I think that's extremely important. Oh, sure. Especially when you get into the trial, it points to the fact that he was out to finish this thing once and for all. Yeah, he wasn't going for any long distance way to solve this. He wanted immediate resolve. Yeah, no, I agree with you. So Byron Smith has shot and killed both Haley and Nick, but the tape is still rolling.

And he rambles on into this tape. It's almost as if he's rehearsing what he's going to say to the authorities. I'll say 1130. They were both dead by one. I refused to live in fear. I felt like I was cleaning up a mess. It was worse than shit. It was a major complication.

I felt like I was cleaning up a mess. Not like vomit even like diarrhea. I was stuck with it. I was sitting in duty of enforcement system. I had to do it. My face. I had to make it up. All right.

So a lot to break down here as well. Yeah. I mean, he, like I said, it's almost like he's rehearsing what he's going to tell people later on. You can hear him make multiple attempts at essentially the same train of thought. You're talking about he had to clean up this mess. One point saying it was, you know, worse than diarrhea. That's really, really bizarre. But what's the mess that he's talking about cleaning up?

The mess that he's into of being robbed, repeatedly or the mess that is now in his basement. That's the part I really struggled with figuring out. Yeah, I think it was just the whole mess. That's what I think too. You know, then you get into him saying, I was doing my civic duty. I had to take care of it because the police wouldn't. You know, again, foreshadowing what's going to come later in the trial, but, you know,

what's a jury going to make of? of that type of statement other than this person was prepared and had made the decision that they were going to take the law into their own hands and do whatever they had to do to keep all of this stuff from happening time and time again. You can kind of draw that from something. Sure. Yeah. Right.

There's one more piece of the audio from Smith's basement. And this is where, I don't know, Gibbs, it's, he starts rehearsing some phone calls that he knows he's going to have to make. Okay. Bruce, uh, stop by tomorrow morning. No rush, but as soon as convenient. Can you do that? Yeah. Uh, perk to the north.

100 feet north, 100 yards north of the corner. and walk in from the west. I realize I don't have an appointment, but I would like to see one of the lawyers here. So again, to me, this is very eerie. It's very odd. You know, the first one he's rehearsing a call that he's going to make the next day

that we'll talk about to one of his friends. And he's telling him exactly where to park and park away and walk up. And then he's talking, you know, then he's rehearsing a call. he's going to make to an attorney's office. Right. Saying that, hey, I need to speak to one of the lawyers.

Is that really a call that you need to rehearse into a tape recorder? Yeah, maybe for him, he just needed to make sure his tone is reflect, how he reflects his voice, sounds the way he needs it to sound. I don't know. It's very strange. Really strange. Or just, maybe that's his personality, how he always is. He has to try it out ahead of time. Roll play at first?

Because it was, you know, you're calling it. attorney's office and saying, hey, can I talk to one of the attorneys? That's a pretty easy phone call to make, not something that I would need to stand in front of a mirror or talk into a tape recorder and see how it sounds. But again, Gibbs, this is sometime after he has shot two teenagers in his own home whose bodies are laying in his workshop on tarps. And he is rehearsing phone calls that he's going to make. So the day after, he doesn't do anything else Thanksgiving Day. The next day, just afternoon, Byron Smith phoned his friend and neighbor Bill Anderson.

And that's the bill that he was referring to in on the audio tape. He called Bill and said, I think I've solved the break in. I think it's over. And he asked Bill if he knew a good attorney and also asked him to contact the sheriff's department, which Bill did. Byron Smith was sitting in his house, watching the driveway when the authorities arrived.

And again, I can't say it enough. The bodies of 18-year-old Haley Kiefer and 17-year-old Nicholas Brady, they're still laying on a tarp in his workshop. This is the next day. It's amazing.

And apparently he calmly walked out the front door with his hands raised and, you know, police took him into custody. They got a search warrant for his house. Obviously, they found the bodies. But they found the audio recorder as well as footage from his surveillance system that we talked about that he had installed. And you can find the videos of this surveillance system. system online. They're not that hard to find. You can see Nick Brady walking around the house.

Now, you can't see anything in the house. This is all outside. But after police found the audio recorder and the surveillance system footage, they got another warrant to go back and get all of his computer equipment and memory cards. And I think the thought there, Gibbs, was that if he recorded the killings on audio, maybe he recorded them somehow on video as well. Okay. And that's what they were checking into, but he didn't. They didn't find any, you know, any such videos. But then it gets fascinating when police sit down to interview Byron Smith.

This is Sergeant Investigator Jeremy Lubits with the Morris County Sheriff's Office. And the date is 1123, 2012. The time right now is 1459. hours. I'm currently in the interview room at the Morrison County Sheriff's Office and currently present with me is Byron. David Smith. Okay, hold on one second, Byron. Can you tell me your full name, please? Byron, David Smith. Before I ask you any questions in regards to the reason that led up to why you were placed under arrest was explained to you at the same. Is that correct? Because there were bodies and that's a good reason. I get called out to your residence today, basically on some information that something might have happened at your house either today or yesterday.

More specifically, I called my good friend Bill Anderson, who was a neighbor, and asked him to contact a lawyer. He wasn't able to. Apparently, they're all busy today. The offices are closed. Since he was not able to contact a lawyer, I asked him to contact the Morrison County Sheriff's Department next. Okay. You asked him to... I asked him to call you.

How long have you lived at your residence, sir? I have been physically resident since March 2009. However, it has been my home of record since the house was built in September of 66. Okay. So you've been, you've had that place for quite a long time, but, right. Okay, it has always been my home. And before that, we lived on the West Side. Okay.

Do you live at the residence with anybody or do you live by yourself? I am by myself. My mother passed away three years ago. Okay. Now, you said that you had talked, you called and talked with Bill Anderson. When did you call and talk with Bill Anderson? I first called him about 1130 this morning. morning. Okay. And then when you called Bill, did you ask him for something? Is that correct?

Bill is the only person I have shared the breaking and entering series with. Okay. So, neighbor, I feel it's important and I trust him absolutely. Sure. So when you called Bill, you said this morning at about 1130 it was, right? I said that I had a problem and I would appreciate it if he got a lawyer and asked him to come over to my house. Okay. So Gibbs, you've got to wonder what's going through the mind of this investigator that's asking the questions, right? And we're going to hear a lot more from him. And he's going to do a really good job of asking certain questions.

But the first thing to me that goes through my mind when I hear that audio is, number one, why did you wait until the next day to call? And it is a question that's going to be brought up later. And then number two, why do you call a friend and ask him to call the sheriff? Why don't you just call us directly and say, hey, I need you guys to come out here. Yeah, exactly. I mean, strange, right? Yeah, I would call 911 first. Sure.

And then followed up. But that's going to be, you know, one of the big questions in this case. You shoot two intruders that come into your home. Why do you not call 911 immediately? you go to bed, wake up the next morning and wait until after lunch, it's going to be a big question. Yeah, I agree with you. It's bizarre. The other thing about that was he was so eager.

He couldn't even wait for the officer to ask the question. He's like telling him his name, telling him all of this. And the guy has to slow him down because, you know, he wants it on tape that he's asked the question. and then he wants the guy to answer. But Smith goes on to give his account of the shootings. You told me at your residence today that your house had just been broken into. Can you tell me about that? Okay.

I had not gone to anyone for Thanksgiving. I am somewhat uncomfortable with other people's family holidays. So I was staying at home. I was in the basement in my favorite reading chair, reading a paper pack. That house was very quiet. house. It's got electric heat and it's a very quiet house. And I hear someone rattling the upstairs door by the garage where everybody comes and goes. This is wrong. You shouldn't be rattling door knobs without least ringing the doorbell first. So I sat down the book and I'm paying attention

and I see a shadow go past the picture window. Then somebody's rattling the basement door trying to get in. But it also is locked and deadbolted. And then I see the shadow in front of the picture window for maybe half a minute or a minute, like they're trying to see what they can see inside. Okay, this is getting unhappy, and I'm getting seriously stressed, because somebody wants in, and they're trying to sneak in, and it's happened before. I'm sitting there hoping they go away, and I hear a glass window broken. In the past couple weeks, I've gotten into the habit of carrying my guns with me inside my house,

because I don't know who's going to break in when. So I'm sitting there and I hear the steps come down the hallway, turn around and come down the stairs. These are people who have stolen my guns. I figure they're willing to use guns if they steal guns. And I decide that I've got a choice of either shooting or being shot. And the guy came down the stairs and I shot him. And after I shot him, I sat down in this chair

and my blood was pounding in my ears, and I just wanted to calm down more than anything else. And I hear more footsteps coming down the hallway, and somebody else starts down the stairs. And thinking back on it, what happened was everybody has red buttons, everybody has sore spots, and I've known since grade school

that being ganged up on is a sore spot with me. I just couldn't think. I didn't think. I wasn't thinking. I was just, they're gaining up on me. So I killed her too. Same way, except the first shot, she tumbled, and I walked over to finish her off. It was a new mini-14 that I bought to replace the one that had been stolen, and it jammed. Trigger clicked, and she laughed at me.

I just pulled out to 22 and shot her and shot her. All right, so a lot in there as well. You hear him talking about everybody has a button. He called it a red button. And for him, it was being ganged up on. Now, in fairness to this guy, Byron Smith, sitting in your basement, hearing somebody break in, walk down your basement steps that shouldn't be in your house, that would be very scary. There's no doubt in my mind, Gibbs, that that would be a scary proposition. You know me.

You know that I'm pretty well equipped to handle a break in and I would be ready for something like that. You are always. I am. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't want to give it away too quickly because we're going to talk about it later. But it's all going to come down to, you know, this guy's ability to defend himself, to defend his home. But how far did he go?

You hear him talk about on that recording, Haley laughed at him, according to him. And he took out his 22 and he shot her. What's that saying? Is that you defending yourself? Or is that you killing a girl that you've already shot multiple times? Because she laughed at you. Exactly. I don't think there's any doubt that Byron Smith thought that he was well within his rights to do what he did.

But as you hear these recordings, as you hear him say certain things, I don't think he did himself any favors by his choice of words. The way that he framed certain things does not make him look like so much that he was defending his home as he was making sure that these people never bothered him again. Now, he added some more detail. And he even talks about his compassion in this one. You said you had used that 22 to shoot the female party. Is that correct? Yeah.

I might have put one, I don't remember clearly, whether the final shot to the man in the face was with that or not. Okay. I don't want to prolong the suffering. Even if I kill somebody, I don't want to leave a man suffer. Okay. In fact, with the female, after I dragged her out of the weight, she was still doing some faint gasping, and I just right there. You're saying right there, if you're pointing your finger underneath your chin, into the cranium.

Okay. At 202 is a piece, either it doesn't go through bone very well. Was she still at the bottom of the stairwell when that happened? That was over in the shop. Oh, that was in the shop? Yeah. I thought she was dead, and it turned out she wasn't. Okay.

So I did a good clean finishing shot. Okay. And she gave out the death twitch. First time I've ever seen it in a human, but it works the same in beaver and deer and whatever. You shoot twice with the mini 14. You hit him in the hip area? Is that where you hit him?

Yeah. Okay. He falls down to the bottom of the steps and he's on the floor, correct? And he's looking face up at me. Okay. Then what? I shoot him in the face. Okay. I want him dead.

Where in the face did you shoot him? Do you remember? I don't know exactly somewhere near the center, and I didn't check afterwards. Okay, okay. And was that with the Mini-14? That you shot him in the face? Okay. Now, at that point, there was a lot of blood, and I had a tarp,

laying by the fireplace that I was going to use to cover of the firewood. I pulled him on the hill. Tarp. Dickie, so much blood from soaking into the carpet. Okay, so did you pull him over by, away from the bottom of the steps over towards the fireplace? No, I spread the tarp out and pulled him onto the tarp. I might have moved him two or three feet. Okay.

Then, where did you move him from there, from the bottom of the steps? It would have been slightly towards the fireplace, because that's where I laid out the tarp. Okay. then I just wanted it out of my sight and I dragged him around the corner into the shop which is exactly where you found him. Holy schnikes, there's a lot to delve into there. First of all, Gibbs, he said at one point during that, if I kill someone, those are the exact words he used.

If I kill someone, I don't want them to suffer. Right. Has he killed people before? Such a strange... Yeah, sounds like he has. you know the way he says it but it's such a strange way of phrasing he's very unemotional in this he's very matter of fact when he talks about finishing shots and the death twitch comparing haley kiefer to an animal a hunted animal and he also talks about shooting nick in the face while he's looking up at him

and and really gives for me that's two of the big things for both of the big things for both Both of these individuals, he makes a statement on tape that says they were still alive and he essentially finished them off. He says it. All of this is going to be used against him at trial. He was also extremely worried about too much blood getting on his carpet. That was weighing heavily on his mind during this whole thing about making sure to keep the blood off of his carpet.

In one part of the interview with police, Smith actually makes a statement about firing more shots than he needed to. So when she laughed at you did that, how did that make you feel that that infuriate you or make you upset? I knew that the gun had misfired previously. I take care of. I was right. And I just pulled it out and, yes, I fired more shots than I needed to. Why did you fire more shots than you needed to, do you figure? Really?

Do you was a peace shooter, and I was very, very threatened, unhappy. You were mad, correct? Yes. Okay. She had basically enraged you for laughing at you, do you think? That was part of it? No, that was just, that was incidental. She'd been, whoever it was, who was breaking into my home,

had been doing it for so long that I was no long. you're willing to live in fear so it was kind of uh correct me from wrong uh byron but it seems like a combination of things that uh made you mad basically at that point would that be oh i was i was i was far over the edge okay when you say far over the edge how do you mean are you referring to furiated infuriated no upset or how are you feeling normally when i do something i justify it normally when i do something i know exactly why i'm doing it and what i expect. I was reacting.

Okay. What were you reacting to is what I'm asking? The threat, the previous losses. So I think in that one, when you can hear the officer doing a pretty good job of trying to lead Byron Smith into saying something that he probably shouldn't say, he doesn't want to say he asks him a series of really good questions as this interview unfolds. The first one being, why did you shoot more than you needed to? My question, Byron, is, uh, why did, why did you shoot again?

She didn't have a weapon in her hand. She wasn't actually, I don't know if she had a weapon in her hand until later. I wasn't looking at her hands. But she did she was laying there hurt. Did she? She wasn't threatening you. I'm just asking. I thought she was threatening me.

Okay. Explain that to me. I assumed she had a gun. Okay. Either inside something or in the purse or in her hand or whatever. And I'm not going to wait for her to, I'm not going to ask her if she has a gun. Right. Understandable.

Okay. I'm not going to wait until she shows it or if I, if she uses it while I'm looking for it. I had already determined that both of them. I knew they were both gun thieves. As far as I was concerned, they were totally dangerous. So again, good question by the police officer. Sure, really good question. But also, I think, a fairly good answer by Byron Smith.

He hasn't given a lot of good answers, but... No, no, not at this moment. You know, about why he continued to shoot, he's saying that he was worried that she had a gun. Now, he didn't see a gun, but he's making the argument that did she have it in her purse, did she have it, you know, in her waistband? He didn't know. Right. And he wasn't going to wait around to find out. No. That's his argument. And it's going to be, you know, one of the arguments at trial. Sure. It was what's defense should be using. Now, the other question that I thought was really good asked of Smith was why he waited until the next day to alert the police. I have to ask, Byron, after the shooting and it's done, why didn't you call law enforcement to report what happened? For the first couple hours, I was just shaking. And I gradually shifted into worrying about another accomplice.

I mean, accomplished, there had already been two. Who knew that both the brass-plated bitch and her husband were both watching? As far as I knew, the whole family was in on it. Bill and I thought the whole family was in on it. And I was pretty much afraid to do anything. An hour later, I had this screwball thought that seems sort of irrational now, but just because my Thanksgiving screwed up, I don't need to screw up yours. Okay.

Is that kind of why you didn't call on? That was a part of it. And I was also sitting there thinking, it's all over, it's not going to change. I can wait until tomorrow on the daylight. I might be thinking more clearly. Gibbs just because my Thanksgiving is ruined it doesn't mean that I have to ruin the Polices yeah I don't want to do anything they don't want to do right now what you build enjoy I mean let's your turkey dinner at your local restaurant you know on your

lunch break but let's throw out the fact that there are actually officers working on Thanksgiving that are not home yeah they're enjoying right the whole thing is just That part, I cannot wrap my head around. Now, when he's talking about, he made some derogatory statements against a woman. He's talking about his neighbor, right? Because you have to remember, we talked about Ashley Williams, the daughter of his neighbors. And he said on tape that he didn't like his neighbors. He didn't get along with them.

He thought this whole time that this Ashley girl was the one robbing his house. now he's saying he was fearful that her parents were going to come retaliate. Exactly. Because I don't know if he thought initially that's who he shot. I don't really know what Byron was thinking because some of the statements that he made were, you know, a little strange. Now, that's the last of the audio. And it was a lot of audio. We don't normally play anywhere near that amount of audio.

but I don't know how you can cover this case and leave it out. You know, what's better than hearing from Byron Smith himself? Oh, of course. Because, you know, we're going to talk about the trial, but we're not going to get into every detail. But I can tell you right now, these tapes are going to be a huge part of the trial. You could have said what he said, but it wouldn't be the same. No. Hearing him say it his way.

Right. Why would you and I say, what he said when you can just hear him say it. I think it's so much better. All right, Gibbs, let's take a quick minute to talk about a new sponsor called Better Help. Is there something that interferes with your happiness or is preventing you from achieving your goal? If so, BetterHelp online counseling is there for you. BetterHelp offers licensed professional counselors who are specialized in issues such as depression, stress, anxiety, family conflicts, self-esteem, and more. Better Help is not a crisis line. They have 3,000 U.S. licensed therapists across all 50 states. But it's available worldwide. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment. Anything you share is confidential. You can schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist. If you're not happy with your counselor, you can request a new one at any time at no additional cost. And this service is available on desktop, mobile web, Android, and iOS app.

But best of all, it's a truly affordable option and TCAT listeners can get 10% off your first month with our discount code T-Cat at betterhelp.com slash T-Cat. So why not get started today? Go to betterhelp.com.com slash T-Cat. That's betterhelp.com slash T-Cat promo code T-Cat. Now, sometime after the murders, police found the car that Haley and Nick had driven to Smith's house. Inside the car, they found stolen goods that were linked to a house burglary that occurred the night before Thanksgiving. And less than a week after the shootings, Byron Smith was charged with two counts of second-degree murder. Sheriff Michael Wetzel came out and said that he did believe the two teens were committing a burglary.

but he added that Smith's reaction went beyond the legal protections of Minnesota law that allows crime victims to use reasonable actions to protect themselves and their property during the commission of a felony. And the sheriff went on to say, we understand and we respect that that right exists, but what happened in this case went further. The law doesn't permit you to execute someone when there's no possible way the crime can continue. So this is big for the sheriff to come out and say this shortly after Smith has been charged. The judge set Smith's bail at $2 million. He later appealed it, got it down to $1 million with the stipulation that he would surrender his passports.

Remember, this guy had spent time in 40 different countries. Exactly. So he had to give up his passport, had to give up all of his guns and be required to not leave the state. So you had families of the victims coming out saying, you know, the guy should have no bail. There's no bail high enough for this guy. And then on the other side, friends of Byron Smith, they came out and said, you know, he shouldn't even be in there. You have the right to defend your home. And this guy has been through hell.

And I think those two things. It's just a small glimpse of how divided some people were over this issue. But later on, a grand jury indicted Smith on two counts of first degree premeditated murder. And his trial began in the spring of 2014. And again, I said Gibbs, we're not going to talk a lot about the trial, but I do want to, you know, get into it a little bit. And I think the prosecutor. set the tone by telling the jury that Smith crossed the legal line when he continued to shoot

both Nicholas Brady and Haley Kiefer even after they were incapacitated. They said that Smith tired of all the break-ins had made the decision to take matters into his own hands and end it once and for all. So that's what they believed happened, the prosecution. Yeah. And I mentioned earlier that Smith moved his vehicle early that Thanksgiving morning. And the prosecution contended in court that this was done by Smith intentionally to lure in his teenage neighbor who he believed was behind the burglaries. Again, getting back to the daughter of his neighbors, Ashley, that he kept talking about in previous clips. it was alleged that he saw her that morning driving back and forth by his house.

But Smith's defense team argued that he moved it simply so that he could clean out his garage. And I mentioned it already, Gibbs. The prosecution played the full audio. What we played was not the full audio. I compressed it. I picked out certain parts. They played the full audio at least three times. for the jury, including, you know, Smith's rehearsals, his practice phone calls, all of that.

There was a part that that I didn't have in the audio where, and it's very early in the beginning, where Smith says something to the effect of, you know, in your left eye. And it, and it comes out at trial, Haley Kiefer was shot in her left eye. They also pointed out to the jury that Byron Smith just happened to have tarps ready for the bodies. And the prosecutor, guy named Pete Orpitt, he compared Byron Smith to a deer hunter trying to lure in his prey and he compared his chair in the basement to his deer stand. And this is what he's telling the jury. They also hammered home to the jury the fact that Smith didn't notify police the day that it

happened, which I think Gibbs to their way of thinking was something someone would do if they had killed two people in fear of their life. And I think you mentioned it right away. You'd call 911. Yeah. You would say, I've just shot two intruders. Right. Please come help me. Yeah, exactly. And that, the prosecution made a big deal of that. Why did he wait essentially almost a full day or so, slept in a house with two bodies. Sure doesn't help his case. No, it doesn't. The defense focused on the fear that Byron Smith was living with in the days, weeks,

and months leading up to the incident. They had a number of character witnesses that vouched for him, said he was one of the nicest men you could ever meet. But the other thing that they did, Gibbs, is they tried to put the blame on Brady and Kuyfer. saying if Brady and Kiefer hadn't broken in, there would have been no trial. And I guess technically that is true. You can't really argue with that. If they don't break into his house, there is no shooting.

There is no trial. But I guess for me, Gibbs, it's very odd. You know, for us to be talking about the people that were killed in one of our episodes in the way that we have to talk about these two individuals. They were two teenagers. They weren't perfect. And they did in fact break into this man's home. They had some run-ins with the law.

It's been proven that, you know, at least Nick burglarized not only Smith's home, but other homes as well. And that's strange for us to have to talk about a victim in that way. But to not bring it up would be. a disservice to the story. Sure. It's part of it. It happened.

It has to be told. But I think the question is, did they deserve to die because of it? Yeah, they broke into his house. Did they deserve to die because of it? That's the question that everything boils down to. And the jury answered it on April 29th, 2014, when after about three hours of deliberation, they found Byron David Smith. guilty of four counts of murder in the deaths of Nick Brady and Haley Kiefer.

And they probably didn't even really need that long. I wouldn't think so. You know, afterwards, jurors said that almost the entire jury knew from the beginning of their deliberations that they were voting guilty. Apparently, there was one holdout for a few hours. But that person wasn't saying that he wasn't guilty. They just wanted to take their time and make sure. sure that, you know, every fact, everything was considered.

The jury's charge during the deliberation was to answer this question. Did Byron Smith act as a reasonable person would have under the same circumstances? That was their charge. They decided no. He did not. After the verdict was read, Smith was sentenced immediately to a mandatory term. of life in prison without the possibility of parole. It's one thing I haven't mentioned.

Smith had been out on bail, you know, for the trial, before the trial. He had been living with friends, I think. I don't think he was living back in the house where it happened, but he had essentially been free. He wasn't in jail. But that ended when deputies took him into custody right after he was sentenced. Yeah. The families of Nick and Haley gave statements about, you know, what great people

they were. Nick's mom, Kimberly said she thought often of what he could have been. Haley's aunt said she was a beautiful girl and it was so senseless what happened. We're going to forever miss her and there's nothing we can do to get her back. It's a tragedy. A senseless tragedy. Byron Smith's defense team announced that they would appeal the verdict. And one of the things that his defense team came out to the media about was that, that they weren't allowed to present all the evidence that they wanted to or needed to. For instance, they wanted to tell jurors about Nick Brady's and Haley Kiefer's previous troubles with the law, some of which we mentioned.

This would have included Brady's connection to prior burglaries, but the judge ruled against this, stating that Byron Smith didn't know who he was. shooting at so their histories or reputations weren't relevant. And I guess I can see that argument. He didn't know when he was sitting in that chair that it was Nick Brady and Haley Kiefer walking down his stairs. I don't, I don't even think he knew that at that point in time, that Nick Brady had been one of the individuals that had burglarized him previously. But I said it up front. This was a case that divided people in a way that few cases do. A lot of the cases that we profile Gibbs, when you have a serial killer, there's not many people on the side of the serial killer,

right? When it comes down to trial, there were a lot of people on the side of Byron David Smith. You know, the division centered around the castle doctrine and whether Smith was correct in the way that he defended his home or whether he executed Haley Kiefer and Nick Brady. Minnesota law allows deadly force to prevent a felony from taking place in one's home, but that person's actions have to be considered reasonable under the circumstances. So you have supporters of Smith that say he was well within his rights to shoot and kill these two teenagers because they were breaking into his home, and he was afraid for his life.

There are even Facebook posts, whole Facebook pages and groups, probably websites, that are devoted to the fact that people consider Byron Smith a hero. I think when you listen to the audio, I think when someone broke in, you know, if he was anticipating or not,

I mean, I think when he's fired the first shot, he probably was okay. But I think after that, anything he did after that, to say he was fearful of his life, I don't know. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And I think it's not even the first shot. I think he could have gotten away with firing multiple shots. Yeah. I think it really came down to once these individuals were incapacitated, to walk up to them. And he said it in his own words to what he, what did he? call it Gibbs a finishing shot. Is that what he's, is that the term he used? Yeah. You know, again, it's almost like he was comparing this to hunting, comparing what he did to, you know, putting an animal that you have shot out of its misery so that it doesn't suffer. That's what he's

saying about these two teenagers. You know, they were, they were down. They were writhing. What he thought he even said it. He thought Haley at one point was dead. And then later finds out that she wasn't. That's when he stuck a 22 revolver under her chin and fired off what he called a finishing shot. I think that's what sunk him. You know, when a jury hears that, I think in their mind, they're saying, that's not reasonable. You know, these two individuals are down. You could have easily run up, use the telephone, called the police, the jury would probably think you're in no immediate danger. You've neutralized the danger. You could have called police and potentially saved these people's lives. But we heard from the tape. Right now, you can interpret the tape different ways.

And I'm sure some people will interpret it one way and some will interpret it another. But I think you can easily make the interpretation of his statements as I couldn't deal with it. anymore. And I couldn't deal with the fact that these kids would go to jail, but would get out. And I think his words were be even more apt to want to steal from him. I do think he was thinking longer term. But not everybody sees it that way. And I think it's important to point out. I mean, the audio does not help his case at all. No, I think the audio sunk him. Now, he may not have gotten off anyway. You know, they, they may have been able to figure out forensically how the shots were fired and from what angle and, you know,

they probably could have pieced all that together anyway. But he essentially told them what happened and it's backed up by the audio from the basement. So I mentioned the supporters of Smith, but obviously a lot of people on the other side of that fence, right, saying that this guy had no right to take the lives of Nick and Haley because what he did went well beyond the right to defend your home and life. They felt like it was premeditated. And we know that the jury sided with this version, right? The jury felt like this as well.

I mean, that's why they convicted him. But I think Sheriff Wetzel summed it up pretty good after the trial. He said, this isn't a case about whether you have the right to protect yourself or your home. You very clearly do. That's a given. This was a case about where the limits are before and after a threat to you or your home occurs. In this case, a jury decided there are limits and they decided where they are. All right, Gibbs, that is it for the case of Byron, David Smith.

Again, like I said in the beginning, it's the one I've wanted to do for a long time. The audio has always fascinated me and the legal question, you know, around the castle doctrine and the right to defend your home and your property and your life, but it's not a free-for-all, right? I mean, I think that's very clear. It's not a do whatever you want. There are some limitations, right? if somebody breaks into your home, and again, a lot of this stuff varies state by state. So when I speak

about a lot of this, I can really only speak about Ohio, but I assume this pertains to a lot of other states as well. Somebody breaks into your home, you chase them off. They run outside your door, right? You can't shoot that person running across your lawn. No. You can't do it. Not allowed. You're going to be charged. And in this case, we find out that there are limited. to what you can do to somebody that has broken into your into your home again i think you have every right to stop the threat absolutely yeah i mean you have to protect yourself but if somebody thinks especially a jury that you went beyond that and you passed the line into executing people which i believe is what the jury thought and it's kind of what the tapes it's a lot of what you get from

the tapes, right, that he could have stopped. He could have called the police, but he just went too far and executed these individuals when could they have been saved? I don't know. But I think if he would have immediately called the police and emergency personnel would have come, either they, they're able to save these people's lives or they're not, I think he would have been okay. I think it would have been a justifiable shooting. Yeah. I think. I think, everything was there, but he went... He just kept going. Kept going.

Went too far. And like I said, clearly, all the audio did not help his case back. Oh, it did not. All right, we got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yeah, let's hear him. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Tom from the quiet state of Illinois, where Gibby, we do not have any noise.

I just wanted to let you know. I loved your podcast. I started at the end, got through Richard Ramirez, and then went back to number one and listened to it. I finished all the regular podcast, and I'm 53 years old. I had to lock the bedroom in that door, the door in my bedroom after listening to BTK. My favorite one was that one, you know, about the guy that killed a woman, you know, in the house, you know, give me the one I'm talking about. That was my favorite.

Anyway, love your show. Keep on ticking. No, that cracks me up. You're making fun of me? Just a little bit. Because I had the noise to Illinois. And then at the end, he's like, you know. You know the one.

I think he's kind of... Making fun of me with how I... With your movies. Yep. But I am a very good movie critic. I can tell you about any movie you ever want to know. You just have to give me the time to do it. Gibby just needs the time.

Hi there. My name is Fantasia. And I'm assuming I'm probably one of your younger listeners. I am 17 years old and I absolutely love your show. I know this is pretty strange, but I really listen to... through a lot of different podcasts. And you guys are definitely one of my favorites.

You guys are really funny. And I like how you add a little bit of, you know, lightness to your show because it kind of is hard topics to talk about. You guys do an insanely good job on it. But, yeah, I just hope you guys keep it up. I'm really enjoying it. And you can count me in as listening to you guys for quite a long time. So thank you so much.

And I'll talk to you later. All right. Love that voicemail from Fantasia. Love that name too. Yeah, yeah. 17 years old. I would say probably one of our younger listeners. Listening to TCAT and sounds like other podcasts. Hey, Mike. Hey, Gibby. Hope you guys are both doing great today. I just got done listening to your latest episode, Betty Lou Beat. Got to love that name. And I just felt compelled to give you guys a call. I've been wanting to do it for a while now. but I've never called a podcast before and wasn't too sure if I want to hear my voice played back if you guys end up airing it. But whatever, because I felt compelled to give you guys a call. I love you guys.

And Mike, I think it's great that you're staying positive about your recent layoff. I'm so sorry to hear that. I know that that's hard. And, yeah, just wanted to say, please keep up the good work, you guys, do an important. amazing podcast. I really love, you know, the dynamic that you guys have. And Gibby constantly cracks me up with his mispronunciations of names and also just how he cannot for the life of him remember any movie titles. I'm constantly screaming into my radio like almost every episode, but I absolutely love it. It would not be the same podcast without you guys. Please, like I

said, keep it up. Y'all are wonderful. Definitely team Mike and team Gibby, waning a little bit more towards Team Gibbs, but got to give my shout out to both of you guys. Yeah, hope you guys have a great day and keep your own time ticking. Okay, bye. All right. Thank you so much for that voicemail. It was a nice voicemail. And she had a great voice. I don't know why she was worried about her voice. Yeah, it sounded good. And I'm glad she's just a little bit more team Gibby. I knew you would be. You know, so. Hi, guys. This is weird.

My name is Vicki. I'm a new Patreon supporter that listen to you guys for about three months now. Very, very cool. I'm studying to be a forensic psychologist, so it's really cool to hear you guys and hear your insights, and I really enjoyed your 100th and 1001st episode. I'm currently taking a little break to save it for my long drive during Thanksgiving. So I'm really excited to hear, maybe this little smile. And yeah, I hope you guys have a great, great week. Yeah. Bye.

All right. That's awesome. Studying to be a forensic psychologist. Forensic psychologist. Yeah. I could do that. Now, she was saving up to listen to episodes on her Thanksgiving drive. Oh, okay. So she's got us in her ear all the way there. Yep. But her voicemail is just coming out now. So she did not hear her voicemail. Well, maybe she'll listen to it on her drive. Or back home. Yeah, we are a few weeks behind on voicemails, a few weeks behind on Patreon shoutouts. There's just only so many you can put.

Just a few weeks behind on everything. Yeah, there's only so many you can put in an episode. So we're running a little bit behind. This is how we are. All right, Gibbs. That is it for another episode of True Crime all the time. We've got no mail back today. No mail?

Nope. Wow. No mail. So for Mike. And Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.