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The recent death of Robert Redford brought renewed interest to an unresolved search for a murder suspect – the one accused of killing the boyfriend of the acclaimed actor’s daughter in Colorado decades earlier.
As local outlets recounted in the aftermath of Redford’s death, his daughter Shauna was attending the University of Colorado Boulder when her boyfriend and fellow student, Sid Wells, was fatally shot in his apartment. Redford was gearing up to film his classic The Natural at the time of the 1 August 1983 murder, yet he was at his daughter’s side in the wake of Wells’ death and was present for his funeral.
Wells’ roommate, Thayne Alan Smika, was ultimately arrested in connection with the slaying. But the district attorney of Boulder county, Colorado, later declined to file formal charges against Smika, citing insufficient evidence. And Smika then disappeared in 1986, as the Denver Post noted.
In 2009, a successive Boulder district attorney, Stan Garnett, began weighing whether to process certain cold murder cases through new DNA tests, including that of Wells. That effort led to authorities obtaining a warrant in 2010 to arrest Smika again for the murder of Wells.
Redford received word that Smika was wanted again in Wells’ killing and made sure to call the district attorney, Garnett told the Colorado news station KUSA.
“I was in my office and my secretary said: ‘Robert Redford’s on the phone – do you want to talk to him?’” Garnett recalled to KUSA. “I said: ‘Sure.’”
Garnett told KUSA that during the ensuing “brief but very cordial conversation”, Redford thanked him and police “for continuing to pay attention to the case”.
The day after Redford died, the FBI announced in a social media post that it was offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to Smika’s arrest. Bail for Smika – a native of North Dakota whose nicknames include Jungle Mike – has been preset at $5m if he is ever captured.
Wells’ brother, Robert, said to KUSA that he holds a “deep appreciation” for all the support his family got from the man who won the 1980 best director Oscar for Ordinary People.
Besides traveling to Wells’ funeral, Redford paid to provide security to the victim’s family early in the murder investigation when it was unclear who the killer was, according to KUSA.
“I got the impression, both from my understanding of the case and from that conversation [with the actor] and some other things, that this was more than just a casual dating relationship, that Mr Wells and Robert Redford’s daughter were pretty serious about each other,” Garnett said to the station.
Garnett – who has since left office and is in private practice – added: “I thought [the call] was a positive reflection of Robert Redford’s concern about his daughter and about this young man who’d lost his life very tragically.”
Just a year after Wells’ killing, Redford’s daughter escaped with her life after she accidentally plunged into a river in Utah in her car.
Shauna Redford Schlosser was among her father’s survivors, along with the actor’s second wife, another daughter from his first marriage, and seven grandchildren. Two of Redford’s sons preceded him in death.
