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Minnesota Man Fatally Shoots Teen Cousins Who Broke Into His Home, Curses At One After Killing Her
Byron Smith, 64, led authorities to his Little Falls, Minnesota, basement where the bodies of Nicholas “Nick” Brady, 17, and Haile Kifer, 18, lay wrapped in tarp.
In 2012, 64-year-old retiree Byron David Smith admitted to gunning down two teenagers who broke into his Little Falls, Minnesota, home on Thanksgiving Day.
The state's castle doctrine — which grants protections from legal prosecution to those using force to defend themselves against an intruder — could have potentially justified the homeowner’s use of deadly force, but the seemingly open-and-shut case resulted in a double-murder conviction.
On Friday, November 23, 2012 — the day after Thanksgiving — authorities responded to Smith’s Elm St. home in Little Falls, about 100 miles northeast of Minneapolis. According to Jeremy Luberts, then a sergeant with the Morrison County Sheriff’s Office, Smith readily admitted to the killings before leading first responders inside the home.
“He shows us a window in his bedroom that somebody had smashed out,” Luberts said in the "12 Minutes on Elm Street" episode of Oxygen's Dateline: The Smoking Gun.
The glass appeared to have been broken from the outside. Then Smith led authorities to the basement where, in an office off to the side, the bodies of Nicholas “Nick” Brady, 17, and Haile Kifer, 18, lay, both wrapped in tarp.
Brady sustained three gunshot wounds, Kifer sustained six.
“I saw that these two bodies were not just laying there; they had been piled,” said then-Morrison County Sheriff Michel Wetzel. “This looked very strange to me.”
Who were Nick Brady and Haile Kifer?
The teens were close cousins who failed to show up for Thanksgiving dinner one day before Smith led authorities to their bodies in his home, according to their loved ones. Brady’s sister said that she and her brother, whom relatives called “Nickel Baby,” had grown up with Kifer like a sibling.
On Wednesday, November 21, Brady and Kifer had spent the evening at a friend’s apartment, leaving the next day at around 11 a.m. Neither Brady’s sister, Rachel, nor their mother, Kimberly Brady, could get ahold of them in time for Thanksgiving celebrations, and fears only worsened when it began to snow.
“I’m thinking, ‘OK, the weather,’” Kimberly told Dateline. “Maybe he got stranded somewhere, and I was hoping that he was just... staying overnight in a safe place.”
By Friday, November 23, the family filed a report with local officials, the same day Morrison County investigators were called to Smith's home.
Who is Byron Smith?
Friends described Smith as a “worldly” man who’d traveled the globe while working with the U.S. Department of State, and a “great conversationalist” who’d moved to the Little Falls area about five years earlier. Neighbors and friends, however, also said he was out of sorts due to a recent string of break-ins at his home. Thieves had taken cash and family heirlooms, and Smith was said to be in fear for his life.
When county officials responded to the scene of the double homicide, Smith admitted to using two guns to kill the teens: a Ruger Mini-14 rifle and a .22-caliber nine-shot revolver.
“If you break into somebody’s home, you better not have the expectation you’re gonna walk out alive because the law permits them to shoot you,” Wetzel said on Dateline: The Smoking Gun. “Minnesota law is clear on this thing: You have the right to use deadly force against another person if you believe your life or the life of another is in immediate jeopardy.”
Smith told authorities that he was sitting in his reading chair in the basement when he heard the glass shatter upstairs. But clues at the Elm St. home continued to puzzle investigators.
“The lightbulbs were screwed out of the ceiling,” said Luberts.
Home security cameras show teens breaking in
Footage from Smith’s home security system showed that Brady indeed broke into Smith’s home on November 22, 2012, a little after 12:30 p.m. He wore a hood and peeked through several windows before breaking the glass and gaining entry.
Kifer followed about 20 minutes later.
Investigators learned that Brady was behind one of the previous burglaries of Smith’s home, taking thousands in cash, valuables, and two guns with the help of another accomplice. Evidence found in Brady’s car after the homicides suggested he’d also broken into other neighborhood homes.
“The impression that [Smith] kind of left on me was that he was living in fear,” said Luberts. “He was not sleeping. It was obviously bothering him physically and emotionally.”
But the scene in Smith’s basement continued to raise questions, especially when authorities discovered that the shooting took place on Thanksgiving Day and that Smith waited until the next day to ask neighbors to alert law enforcement.
When asked why he waited, Smith told investigators that he didn’t want to bother them on the holiday.
Byron Smith’s account puzzles investigators
In an audio-recorded interview obtained by Dateline: The Smoking Gun, Smith gave his version of events.
“Whoever it was who was breaking into my home had been doing it for so long that I was no longer willing to live in fear,” said the homeowner.
Smith said he moved his vehicle a few blocks away to clean his garage, which would have given would-be burglars the impression that no one was home. He said that after hearing Brady break in upstairs, he remained in his recliner as the intruder came down the basement steps.
“And then I saw his feet, and then I saw his legs, and when I saw his hips, I shot,” Smith admitted.
Kifer came down minutes later, prompting Smith to open fire once again.
“It jammed, the trigger clicked, and she laughed at me,” according to Smith. “I just pulled out the .22 and shot her. If you’re trying to shoot at somebody and they laugh at you, you go again.”
Smith continued, “I thought she was dead, and it turned out she wasn’t, so I did a good, clean, finishing shot.”
Authorities wondered why Smith fired the fatal shot after the unarmed teen was no longer a threat, and turned the investigation over to prosecutors. Smith was arrested and released on bond, and the town of Little Falls was divided over whether the killings were justified.
New clues would lead prosecutors Brent Wartner and Pete Orput — who died in 2022, according to Fox Minneapolis affiliate KMSP-TV — to push for murder charges. In April of 2013, a grand jury indicted Smith on two counts of first-degree murder, a move that left Smith’s staunch supporters reeling.
“He went way, way, way beyond defending himself [from intruders],” Orput told Dateline before his death.
Defense attorney Steven Meshbesher insisted it was all one “big misunderstanding” and that the “justified” shooting only occurred because Smith lived in “utter fear.”
“It’s not something he wanted to do, but he didn’t ask them to burglarize his home in a violent way on Thanksgiving,” said Meshbesher. “They chose to do that, and he reacted.”
Tape recording proves premeditation
Brady’s mother, Kimberly Brady, told Dateline that she “couldn’t fault” Smith if he, in fact, he had killed out of fear for his life. But an audio recording made by Smith, from a device hidden in a bookcase when the shootings took place, threw the entire case on its head.
The courts heard Smith’s whispers at the time of the shootings.
“I don’t see them as human,” Smith was heard saying. “I see them as vermin.”
Smith’s decision earlier on Thanksgiving Day to move his vehicle from the driveway allowed prosecutors to present the idea that Smith wished to bait the intruders in an act of premeditation. They also focused on Smith’s decision to wait 24 hours to alert anyone to the deaths, as well as him not telling investigators about his hidden tape recorder.
Prosecutors accused Smith of lying in wait, after having unscrewed the basement light bulbs so that burglars couldn’t switch on the lights on the way downstairs.
“He planned, he prepared, and he was determined to kill whoever was breaking into his house and stealing his property,” said Orput.
Prosecutors had a lot to work with from Smith's six-hour tape recording, which was obtained by Dateline: The Smoking Gun, including the moments of the shootings.. At one point before the break-in, Smith whispered to himself, “In your left eye." His fatal shot to Kifer was in her left eye, according to prosecutors.
He also rehearsed what he’d say to lawyers when the time came.
The recorder captured the 12-minute break-in, which included Smith killing Brady before saying, “You’re dead,” followed by the sounds of Smith reloading his gun.
Minutes later, jurors heard Kifer whisper her cousin’s name before going down the basement stairs. More importantly, the tape proved Kifer never laughed at Smith, as Smith had told investigators.
“She’s screaming in a high pitch, saying, ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’” said Orput.
Smith called Kifer a “bitch” after she was dead.
Brady's mom Kimberly said that she kept an “open mind” throughout the trial, but after hearing the tapes, she thought of Smith’s actions as “pure evil,” she told Dateline.
After four hours of deliberations, a jury found Smith guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Catch up on Dateline: The Smoking Gun on Oxygen.
