The cold case cowboys

Will they solve their current case?
The cold case they’re working on now is also beginning to warm up. 

These are the facts as they know them:  In October 1995, Dennis Ray Smith, a retired navy petty officer, disappeared.

Hall: He was retired.  He enjoyed eating steak, eating shrimp, drinking beer and Margaritas, and minding his own business.

Smith’s son, Sean, has been haunted by his father’s disappearance.

Sean Smith: I had written it off .that we probably never know…

Two years after Smith went missing, his body was discovered by a real estate agent and surveyor looking behind the house where he once lived...

Smith: The surveyor had found a tarp, looked like a tarp.  And he went to look.  And it was my father.

And again, the cause of death was clear. Dennis Smith had been shot in the head.

Now, Sean knows how his father died, but who killed him and why?  Those questions have remained unanswered for the past nine years.

With a small budget for investigations from the sheriff’s department, the cowboys are picking up the trail. They’ve examined Smith’s computer, used laser technology to measure the crime scene, constructed a dummy with Smith’s dimensions to re-create the crime, and they have interviewed dozens of witnesses.

But one piece of evidence stands out in their minds— an anonymous letter Smith’s family received long before his body was found, telling his family that he choked in his sleep. There was no name and no signature.

Clearly, whoever wrote the letter knew that Dennis Smith wasn’t just missing, he was dead. But if he really choked in his sleep, why would he have been buried in the shallow grave behind his house?

Phillips: But it’s fair to say the author of this letter is a person of interest?

Hall: Sure. Absolutely.

The cowboys are reluctant to say anything more, for fear of compromising their leads.  But they remain cautiously confident about their progress and as modest as ever—insisting that, given the time, any team of investigators could achieve the same success.  They say it doesn’t take forensic genius or anything fancy to solve cold cases.

Phillips: So how are you gonna solve this one?

Olson: Good old-fashioned police work, like we did the others.

For the cold case cowboys, that’s all the payment they need: Finding answers for people like Sean, they say, is a great way to spend their retirement.

Schultz:  Four old guys, grabbing a case, one case, and working it to its conclusion.

Phillips: And if the bad guys want to underestimate you?

Olson: That will be fine with us. It won’t be the first time.

The Cold Case Cowboys now have an opening. Thomas Schultz, the senior member of the group, has decided to go out and solve cold cases on his own... sort of a lone ranger. 

The Cowboys are interviewing prospective volunteers this week. They also conduct workshops about helping develop cold case volunteer units nationwide. The cowboys have also signed a movie deal to be made about their lives. Syd thinks he should be played by Clint Eastwood.

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