A closer look / Lakewood
Patricia Smith: the decades before a DNA match
An original companion piece
Approximately 1 minute
In July 2018, investigators received a DNA match in Patricia Smith’s murder case. She had been killed in her Lakewood home in January 1984. More than 34 years separated those two dates.
The First Judicial District Attorney’s Office reported that the match identified Alex Ewing, who was then in custody in Nevada. A Jefferson County jury convicted him in April 2022. On April 12, the court sentenced him to life in prison for Smith’s murder, consecutive to the three life sentences imposed for the murders of Bruce, Debra and Melissa Bennett.
Smith was 50 when she died. At sentencing, her children described the wait and remembered her as a mother, grandmother, neighbor and friend. A court date could mark the end of that wait for a sentence. It could not stand in for the life they remembered.
Source: First Judicial District Attorney’s Office: Patricia Smith case, April 2022 sentencing announcement.
This original companion piece describes the April 2022 announcement. It is not a book excerpt or a statement about later case developments.