All language subtitles for S01E05 What Lies Beneath

This particular Thanksgiving
was gonna be

a little bit extra special

because my grandchildren,
Nick and Haile,

were gonna be there.

Nick was 17, Haile was 18.

They were cousins and very,
very close friends.

Dinner was supposed to start at
about one o'clock.

Nick and Haile weren't
there yet.

We waited and waited
and waited.

It was about 2:30
or three o'clock

before we finally just decided
to sit down.

And quite honestly,
nobody really ate much.

We were on phones texting
Nick and Haile

to find out where they were.

And there was no answer,
no answer, no answer.

That was really
frazzling everybody.

There was a sense that
something was not right.

Never in my wildest dreams did
I think what happened would

have actually happened.
I believe that evil took over

that night.

The day after Thanksgiving,
November 23, 2012,

I was off work.

We were sitting downstairs,
my wife Chrissi, at the time,

and my nine-year-old daughter
Haile, and we were watching

a Christmas show.

But I was always on call 24
hours a day, seven days a week.

We don't have a huge department
with a lot of people.

In fact, there were only two
investigators for

the whole county.

And the deputy told me that
he received a strange call from

a William Anderson, saying that
his neighbor, Byron Smith,

had called the Sheriff's Office
wanting to talk to an attorney.

He said, well, Byron's been
having some problems with some

break-ins to his place,
and I suspect he might have

taken things way too far.

When I heard this description,

something just wasn't sitting
right in my stomach.

Smith lived just on
the outskirts of town.

It's approximately
about a five-minute drive from

the Sheriff's Office to
Byron Smith's residence.

And Byron's house,
incidentally,

is at the dead end...

...of Elm Street.

When I pulled into
the driveway, what I did notice

as I'm pulling up to
his attached garage is that

there's no vehicles
parked outside.

I thought that was
a little odd.

Like, where's his vehicle?

As I'm exiting my squad car,
I see an older male come out of

the house with messy gray hair,
wearing a blue jean jacket

and jeans that appeared like
he slept in them.

His hands raised
above his head.

Well, that's not a normal thing
that people typically do

when I respond to their house to
see what kind of problems

they're having.

The hairs on the back of my
neck were starting to stand up.

And it's like,
OK, now something more

is possibly happening here.

I asked him,
"Are you Mr. Smith?

And he said, "Yes, I am."

Thoughts were racing through
my head, trying to figure out

what do I do next?

I said, "I heard something
happened at your house here.

Is it OK if we come in
and talk to you?"

So Byron open the door and we
walked into his residence.

He was very calm.

I didn't notice any erratic
behavior or anything from him

at the time.

He was just matter of fact that
somebody broke into his house.

There was a window that had
been shattered, and the glass

was laying on the inside.

What that indicated is that
somebody had broken the window

to gain entry into his house.

Byron told us that the break-in
happened on Thanksgiving Day.

I thought that was a little odd
when he told me that because

he's not reporting it now until
the day after Thanksgiving.

So Byron wanted to show us
something in the basement.

And as I'm walking down
the steps,

I see a rug.

And I see what looks like
a spot of blood.

OK, that's kind of
a red flag for me.

Maybe something's going
on here.

His walls are white.

And I see what looks like
a speck of blood on the wall.

Now the hairs are really
starting to stand up

on the back of my neck.

It's like,

what am I gonna find here?

So we get to the bottom of
the steps, and this chair was

in an odd location.

I don't know why somebody would
set it up like that,

but it was sitting between
two bookshelves,

very tall bookshelves.

There were a bottle of water
and some energy bars.

Then I also noticed that
the light bulbs above

the reading chair in
the ceiling had been removed

and we're sitting in a pile.

I'm like... wait,
what's going on here?

Why would somebody do that?

Then he goes on to tell me that
he's sitting in

his reading chair,

and he had heard somebody
walking around

the house outside.

He heard somebody
trying the doorknobs.

Byron would have had ample time
to make a phone call to law

enforcement and report that,
"Hey, somebody is looking to

break into my house here."
But he doesn't.

He said, "I see the footsteps
coming down the stairs.

"And as he's coming down where
I could see his hips...

...I fired."

And I'm like, "Whoa, you fired?"

Now I'm just finding out he has
a gun with him.

Byron said, "So I went and I sat
back down in my reading chair."

And he goes, "As I'm sitting
there, I hear somebody trying

"the door, and then I hear more
footsteps coming

down the hallway."

He tells me that it felt like
he was being ganged up on.

Byron said that when he saw
the hip area of this person,

he shot again.

And she, he used the word
"she," fell to the bottom

of the stairs.

And when I heard that,
I'm like, "Oh my God,

now a female party's involved?"
And I'm just like, whoa.

I look over at the other deputy
and he's got this huge

"holy crap" expression on his
face, which I'm sure is the same

expression I had on my face
at the time because

I've never heard something like
this before.

There obviously was something
going on here, and I needed to

figure out
what the heck it was.

But at that time, I had no idea
the impact this case

would have on my life,

and that it would change
our small community forever.

I'm asking myself, did I really
hear this right?

Did Byron Smith just admit to
me that he had basically

executed two people that had
broke into his house?

He's very calm about
the whole thing, really.

But I could tell that he was
not giving me the full story.

So as I'm looking at this
little bit of blood that I did

see in the spot where he told
me that he shot these two

people, it was very odd to me
because there should have been

a lot more blood in that area.

As Mr. Smith is explaining
these things to me, I could see

blood now on his jacket,
on his pants, and then also

on his shoes.

And this whole time, I haven't
seen any bodies yet.

I said, "Well, can you show me
where the bodies are?"

And he goes, "Follow me."

There's a closed door that
leads back

into his office-workroom area.

And sure enough, I see
the bodies

lying next to each other.

I had no idea who these victims
were, but I could see multiple

gunshot holes in the body of
the female party.

The male party was wrapped in
a tarp and all I could see was

his feet and jeans that
he was wearing.

And I said, "Mr. Smith,
when did this happen?"

And he told me, "Yesterday
on Thanksgiving."

I said, "Why did you not report
this incident yesterday?"

And Smith looks at me and he
says, "Well, just because

"my day was ruined,
I thought, I don't want to wreck

your guys' Thanksgiving."

The day was
really a bust.

At about seven o'clock that
evening, Thanksgiving evening,

you know, the rest of the kids
were calling around,

calling friends,

trying to find out where Nick
and Haile were.

On Thanksgiving 2012, I was
preparing to have dinner

with my family.

I started to worry when I got
a call from his sister,

wondering if I had heard
from Nick at all.

And that's kind of where I was
like, OK, there's something

obviously more going on here.

So it was, uh,

not a good night.

Little Falls is a small town.

Two teenagers just don't
go missing.

Little Falls is your typical
slow-paced town.

Population right around
about 8,000.

We're two hours from
the Twin Cities.

It's just kind of its own
little corner of Minnesota.

But Little Falls
doesn't have a lot

for the younger kids to do.

What teenagers do here,
get in trouble, honestly.

I was actually supposed to hang
out with Nick that morning,

and I just never heard
from him.

We hung out a lot,
and I do mean a lot.

I would call him more like
a brother to me than a friend.

If you're having a bad day
and Nick is there, you're not

gonna have a bad day for long.

He's gonna find a way to get
you to smile and cheer up,

even if you don't want to.

Nick was really good at
changing the mood into

a positive way.

There's not a whole lot of
people that had a bad time

with him around.

To be really honest,
Nick lit up a room.

Haile was always polite,
always gracious.

She just had that nice
air about her.

There was something with Haile

that, you know,
you wouldn't expect

her to be rude to anybody.
Just genuinely nice.

It was so out of character for
Nick and Haile to not respond.

Just unthinkable.

Where are you?

We couldn't file a missing
persons claim for 24 hours.

So we had to wait till
the next day.

The whole time I'm thinking,

OK, has a crime
been committed here?

I knew that Mr. Smith had
the legal right to

defend himself.

He had the legal right to use
lethal force in his home.

So the law states that.

But the problem, what I see,
was these people

were not armed.

So I had to make the ultimate
decision to place him

under arrest.

Mr. Smith's answer to me was,
"Yes, I understand.

I know you're just doing
your job."

As I'm going around the outside
of the house, I noticed

surveillance cameras
that were set up.

So that was an indication to me
that, hey, there's possibly

some video recording of this
incident that I could get.

Back at the station,
deputies had Byron Smith in

an interview room.

And said they'd be right back.

So they had him
in the room by himself.

And they were watching him
through double-sided glass.

They needed to figure out
if Smith was telling the whole

truth, if this really
was self-defense,

or if this was
cold-blooded murder.

In the meantime,
we got a call

from two Minnesota
State Patrol officers.

They said "We noticed
something odd."

A vehicle was parked in front
of our residence here on

Thanksgiving Day yesterday,
and we have no idea whose

vehicle it is.

So they ran the license plate
on the truck,

and it came back to
Byron Smith.

Why in the heck is Smith's
vehicle parked a quarter mile

away in front of some State
Patrol officer's house?

Early on, as information was
trickling out, people were for

sure taking Smith's side.

People feel connected to
defending their property.

It was kind of this rumor mill
that ended up

turning into pretty big news,
and everyone was

picking a side.

It was becoming a powder
keg situation.

And the story

was gonna get pretty crazy.

Byron Smith had just admitted
that he had shot two people in

his basement
claiming self-defense,

but they're not sure if
he's telling the whole truth.

After I arrested Byron Smith,
our Sheriff's Office dispatch

received a phone call from
the parents of two juveniles,

17-year-old male party by
the name of Nicholas Brady

and his 18-year-old cousin,
Haile Kaifer.

It was reported that both
juveniles are missing

over a day now.

Well, we got a description of
both of them and it seemed to

add up and match pretty close
to the juveniles that we had

currently in the basement at
Smith's house.

We live out in the country
and this vehicle pulls down

our long driveway.

We were actually hopeful that
it was Nick and Haile.

My wife finally looked out
our window and saw that it was

the chaplain, and she knew
something was not right.

The deputy and the chaplain
told us that Nick and Haile had

both been shot
burglarizing a house.

No more details other
than that.

My first thought was, why would
you break into a house?

And it was just devastating,
losing my grandson,

losing Haile,

for something that both
knew better.

No Thanksgiving has been
the same since then.

So,

trying to get myself
calm here.

Back at the station,
deputies were watching Byron

Smith, trying to figure out
what is going on

inside his head.

I looked through
the two-way mirror at Smith.

He's sitting there,
he's getting a little restless,

getting a little antsy,
because now it's been

a little while.
So I sit down with Byron.

What I knew about Byron Smith
is that he's a 64-year-old

retired man that lived alone.

He told me that the house was
his family home that

he grew up in.

He initially had been
working overseas,

installing surveillance cameras
in embassies

throughout the world.

That's what he did
for a living.

Smith was a bit of a loner.

You know, didn't have a lot of
visitors come to his home.

But that summer of 2012,
uh, decided to hire someone to

come take care of his lawn.

Several boys were cutting
this grass.

Nick Brady ended up being one
of those kids that came over to

do lawn work for him.

During that time, that's when
Byron started to notice things

were missing, including his POW
watch and a bomber jacket.

And that's when he fired him
and told him

never to come back to
his house.

But by October 2012,
his house was still getting

broken into.
He was clearly angry.

I mean, anybody would be angry
if their house was broken

into continually.

Like, he kind of became
this target.

And at one point, some arrests
were made.

But it just, in his mind,
wasn't what he imagined should

happen to someone who was
breaking into his home.

And so he went from trying to
get the law to help him to

taking the law into
his own hands.

Like, I'm going to deal with
this myself.

So he had surveillance cameras
all around the outside

of his house.

In one camera he had facing
there, where his property line

was, you could see one of
his neighbors homes, and that

happened to be the one neighbor
who he was convinced was

breaking into his home.

During Smith's interview
he tells me that he's never

gotten along with his neighbors,
the Williams, next door.

And he I suspected that it was
the Williams' daughter that was

involved in
previous burglaries.

And so he went from being
a victim to being a vigilante.

Smith told me that he thought
he had killed Ashley Williams,

the girl that lived
next door to him.

I shouldn't have been involved.

I shouldn't have even been
brought up.

I shouldn't be here right now
doing this interview.

Once upon a time, it was a good
place to live, on Elm Street.

But Byron Smith is a cruel,
heartless man.

He had a deep hate towards me.

I didn't feel safe
being his neighbor.

I live in fear, knowing it was
supposed to be me.

I felt it important to get
my story out there, my truth,

because I don't know what
tomorrow brings.

My thought on hiding my
identity was because I was

absolutely victimized by
Byron Smith,

and I would like to not be
a victim or feel like

a victim anymore.

His claims were very absurd,
100% not true.

As far as my record for
breaking and entering any place

is null and void.

I have never stole from
anybody, and I would never.

When I was in grade school,
I went down to his house to

sell him cookies for
the school, and he didn't want

nothing to do with it.

That was the one and only time
I ever been to his house.

I didn't feel
safe being his neighbor.

Growing up, I had cats and a
family dog go missing, because

they went onto his property,
and I think that he killed them

because of that.

I wish I knew why he had so
much anger towards me.

When Byron Smith's house
started being broken into

in October of 2012,
he made her the bad guy

and invented this whole plan of
vengeance against this girl.

But it actually made no sense.

She didn't actually live there
at the time.

The timeline of when his jacket
went missing

didn't actually make sense.

She would have been a baby
at the time.

So I would say
his mental state was

shaky at best.

A lot of his peers talked about
how he had a bit of

a short temper.

He was becoming a very
disturbed individual and it was

becoming a powder
keg situation.

It was only a matter of time
before he was gonna explode.

He said he fell down the stairs
and was laying wounded at

the bottom of the stairs.

And he goes, "As I'm sitting
there, a little while later,

I hear more footsteps
descending the stairs."

He says, "Ashley Williams fell
to the bottom of the stairs,

and she's wounded."

Again, he said,
"I just want her dead.

"I take my rifle,

I point it at her."

You could see almost that, when
people describe him as being

a bullied kid, you could see
that come out in that moment.

You know, it's like
he heard things

that didn't really happen.

"So I grabbed my pistol I had at
my side, I aimed at her chest

and I shot and I shot
and I shot."

And I'm like, wow.

He said, "When she quit moving,

"I then grabbed her and laid her

on the tarp next to him."

And he said, "I just sat with
the bodies in the basement,

"fearful that the Williams
family was gonna come over with

firearms, you know, to kill me."

I would describe Byron Smith as
like, kind of a Norman

Bates-type character,
like Norman Bates from

the movie Psycho.

If you've ever seen the end of
Psycho where he's kind of just

sitting in a rocking chair,
just super calm,

watching the fly fly
around the room.

But in his head, he's having
a psychotic break.

He's already killed people.

That was kind of Byron's
demeanor a lot of the time,

like just not wanting to break
in front of people,

But then, at any moment,

he could snap.

It was vitally important that
we keep Smith in custody,

or there's a strong likelihood
that somebody else could be

shot and killed.

After I finished my interviews
with Byron, I drafted up five

separate search warrants.

From the search warrant at
Smith's house, we found out

that he had moved the rugs at
the bottom of the steps

where I initially was talking
with Byron.

What they discovered was brain
matter, pools of blood,

and also blood marks dragging
across the carpet that led back

to his office workroom.

So it appeared very deliberate
and intentional on Byron's part

that he had taken those rugs
and covered up the spot.

Well, I was in the back office
workroom where the bodies were,

And I found a digital,
handheld audio recorder sitting

on top of his desk back there.

And we found the same exact
type of recorder hidden in

the bookshelf above
his reading chair.

I had this odd feeling in
the pit of my stomach.

And what we found was the holy
grail piece of evidence

in this case.

It recorded a monologue of
Byron Smith basically

rehearsing what
he was gonna do if anybody

broke into his house.

Over and over again,
practicing saying,

"I think I need to speak to
an attorney."

Just insane.

And it turns out that recorder
actually recorded everything.

I had five separate search
warrants at hand.

And I met with
the county attorney

at Byron Smith's house.

There were some very important
key pieces of evidence that

we needed to get in this case.

What we found in
the surveillance videos was

that around 11:00 AM on
Thanksgiving Day, Smith went

outside and got into his pickup
and drove the pickup away.

Little while later, we saw him
walking back through the woods

to his house,
hiding his vehicle away from

the house to make it look like
nobody was home.

You know, we have a lot of deer
hunters in Minnesota,

and this is what we do.

We sit in a deer stand,
and we have food and water

and that, so we can sit
for the long haul and wait

for the prey to come in.

Well, that's what it seemed
like Byron did.

To be sitting in your basement
in the middle of the day in

complete darkness, waiting for
someone to break into your

house and to make it appear
that you're not home, so that

they want to come in, so that
you can kill them, is like

another level of depravity.

What we captured on that
digital recorder paints

the perfect picture of what
I basically suspected

when I placed Smith
under arrest,

is that this was a murder
and not self-defense.

When Nick initially came in,

you can hear the window break.

You can hear the footsteps
descend down the stairs.

And then you hear

the initial one shot.

Now, he's laying there wounded.

Then you hear a final shot,

where Byron shot Nick
in the head.

You can hear the body dragging
across the floor to his back

office room.

A little while later,
we see Nick's cousin,

Haile, come walking up
to the house.

But then that's the last thing
we see of her on video.

Smith said that he went and sat
back down in his chair.

But what he didn't tell me was
he had actually

reloaded his gun.

11 minutes later, Haile came
in the house.

When she got to the top of
the stairs, you could actually

hear Haile whispering.

She slowly started to descend
the stairs

looking for her cousin.

That's when you hear

Now she's laying there wounded.

Smith says he goes to
finish her off.

He aims the gun at her.

That's when his rifle
jammed on him.

When Smith told me that
Haile was laughing at him,

that was a lie.

She was pleading for her life.

He wrapped both of their bodies
in tarps and just kept them

there overnight.

He had no regard for
their remains, just totally

disconnected himself from them
as humans, much less kids.

It'd be awful to happen to
anybody, but the fact that

they were children was really,
really just disturbing.

So he was initially charged
with two counts of

second-degree murder, and then
a grand jury was convened

and they agreed that he should
be charged with two counts of

first-degree murder.

When this broke, there was only
a couple reporters covering it.

It was me and Horsome
County Record.

I mean, I'd say "hi" to him
in the morning.

Byron Smith comes across as
a really kind person.

He's very quiet and has a very
soft demeanor.

But then when he feels cornered
or he feels humiliated,

something happens.

There is another person that
just comes out, and he just,

it's-- it's scary.

During the trial, I listened
to the recordings.

They still haunt me.

I learned that he was targeting
me, which to me was a blind

side, and to this day,
it affects me.

Sitting in the
courtroom, listening to that,

I've been angry.

I've never experienced rage
in my life.

Listening to him talk about my
grandson and Haile that way,

I literally could have gotten up
and attacked him

right in the courtroom.

He's a monster.

No regular human being could go
to that extent.

I don't know any way to put it
besides a monster.

He just wanted to be judge,
jury, and executioner.

Haile was looking for Nick.
She was not a perpetrator.

I don't believe that she was
doing anything other than

searching for her cousin.

And she certainly bore the--

bore the brunt of
Smith's rage.

In the Little Falls trial of
Byron Smith, the man charged

with killing two people in
his own home, two very

different pictures are painted
by the prosecutor and defense.

Smith's defense
attorneys are trying to see

if self-defense holds up.

And jurors in the Byron Smith
case will now consider four

counts, two of which are
first-degree murder.

Smith was tried and convicted
of two counts of first-degree

murder and sentenced to prison
for the rest of his life.

I would say it set a precedent
for Minnesota case law here in

just how self-defense works.

The news media really hyped
this case up about the Castle

Doctrine Law and it became
national news.

You're in your home, you're
broken into,

you can shoot the intruder to
protect yourself.

This is called the Castle Law
in Minnesota.

It was very divided.

We would get a parade of cars
past our house,

people harassing us.

Well, that was very hard on
my family.

My wife finally had enough
and wanted a divorce,

and I ended up
getting divorced.

I remember going into town,
and a couple of people

made some hurtful comments
that, you know,

this was my fault or this was
my family's fault.

There's times when I actually
have a bulletproof vest

that I wear.

I had people stalking me, so.

I would read online the people
that sided with Byron and their

opinions about Nick and Haile.

I just wished at the time that
I could tell my story.

He is a cruel, heartless man.

I think we paint this picture
that this town is divided.

I just think that this town
is sad.

For people who pay attention to
the news, there's always two

sides to the story.

Be open-minded enough to get
both sides.

Mr. Smith wanted revenge,
and he didn't care how

he got it.

I've had properties broken into
before and you feel violated,

but it's stuff,

you know, stuff can
be replaced.

Taking a human life is way,
way different than that.

If I could talk to Nick
or Haile, I'd probably tell

them both that I miss them
and everybody down here misses

them and it's just,
it ain't the same.

My hope for Nick would have
been that he had consequences

for his actions,
that he learned from them

and that he moved on.

Haile would have found
true happiness.

She was such a nice young lady
that, you know, if she would

have chosen to get married,
there'd be 100 guys out there

that would be dying to
marry her.

Nick's personality would have
gotten him certainly

high places.

Do I miss them?
Every day.

There isn't a day goes by that
I don't think about them

with a smile on their face.