Joseph Weldon Smith

When it comes to family annihilation cases generally the motive is clear. If they do not end in a murder/suicide then the perpetrator usually takes off and ends all contact with anyone they know. They are also careful to make sure no one is left alive. In many ways these cases are not much different than other cases when it comes to motive. There are almost always financial issues. In cases that do not end in murder/suicide it is often believed, although not always expressed by the perpetrator, that the motive is as simple as wanting to rid oneself of a family and start over.

These types of cases are generally planned out for weeks or months in advance by the perpetrator which is why oftentimes the crime is not discovered for some time, giving the perpetrator plenty of time to get far away. Think of cases such as John List and William Bradford Bishop Jr. Both of these men killed their mothers, wives and children, either effectively hid their bodies or prepared things in which no one would notice for some time that the family was gone. Both List and Bishop then took off and all but disappeared. List was found several decades after he committed his crime but Bishop has never been found. The case of Joseph Weldon Smith was not quite like this but I doubt things turned out the way he planned.

In September of 1990 Joseph Weldon Smith went to an upscale home in a gated community in Henderson Nevada, a suburb of Las Vegas. By all accounts it seems that the home was not for sale but Smith wanted to buy it anyway. Seventy-one year old Frank Allen was the homeowner and would say that he had not intended to sell but that Smith made him a deal he really could not refuse. Smith offered to pay $50,000 more than the appraisal of the home. It is not clear exactly what channels, if any were used, or were alleged would be used in order for Smith to buy the house. Smith told Allen that he wanted to move his family, his wife Judith and her two daughters, twenty year old Wendy Cox and twelve year old Kristy Cox as soon as possible because Wendy was getting married in November and they needed to be settled. It seems that on September 21^st Smith gave Allen a $35,000 check and Allen gave him the keys. Allen was going to keep one of the bedrooms of the home to use on weekends until the sale was final.

Almost a week later Allen would find out that the check Smith had given him had been returned. The bank would tell him that Smith had closed the account it had been written on. Allen contacted Smith who would tell him he would send a check back out to him. When that did not happen Allen made plans to go to the home on the weekend of October 5^th. On that Friday morning Smith would call Allen inquiring about when he would arrive. Allen would tell him that it would be much later in the day before he would arrive at the home. In fact Allen would not arrive until the early morning hours of the 6^th. At that point Smith told Allen that he and his wife were going on a weekend trip and the home would be empty but that there were two checks in the house for him. One was the original $35,000 and the second one was in the amount of $3,338.80, for the October mortgage.

When Allen got to the home around 1:30 that morning he would go into the dark home, what he assumed was empty home. He went to where Smith had told him the checks were location but found a note instead leading him to another area of the home. Allen would never find the checks but he did find Joseph Weldon Smith, in the dark, in a corner seemingly waiting for him. Allen would later say that without saying a word Smith would attack him with a hammer. Allen attempted to head towards the exit but realized he had locked himself inside the home. Rather than take the time to unlock the glass door, Allen simply ran through it, obviously cutting himself in the process. He would make his way to the guard shack at the entrance to the community where the security guard on duty would call the police.

It is unclear exactly how Smith was able to escape the area but by the time law enforcement arrived he was no where to be found. However, the rest of his family would be, although they were in no position to tell authorities what had happened. Each of the three females, Judith Smith, Wendy Cox and Kristy Cox would apparently be found in their respective bedrooms. They would all be found with multiple, severe head lacerations. A coroner would later reveal that they had all also been strangled as well. At least in the case of Judith the medical examiner would determine that the lacerations to her head were done after she had already died. They would also determine that the victims had been dead for some eighteen hours before they were found.

Authorities obviously knew who they were looking for based on Frank Allen's report but they could not find him. Joseph Weldon Smith called one of his wife's daughter in laws early that morning and told her of the murders, except of course he did not tell her he was responsible. In that version, as there would later be more, Smith would tell the family member that Frank Allen had committed the murders because he was angry that Smith owed him money. It seems investigators would figure out quickly that Allen was not the perpetrator. After that call it seems as if Smith disappeared for a while.

The story of the murders aired on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries and a viewer recognized Smith as someone who had been residing in a motel in the Los Angeles California area. By the time authorities arrived Smith was gone, but they did learn that he had a brother in the area and they decided to keep eyes on him. Harold Smith would ultimately lead authorities to his brother at another local motel. They were both arrested on April 22, 1991, six months after the murder. Joseph would be charged with three counts of first degree murder, first degree attempted murder and one count of use of a deadly weapon. Harold Smith would be charged with aiding and abetting. It is not clear what, if anything, came of Harold's charges.

After a jury trial Joseph Weldon Smith was convicted on December 11, 1992 on all charges. When it came to the charges of attempted murder and the use of a deadly weapon Smith would receive sentences of twenty years. For the first degree murder of his wife, Judith, Joseph would receive a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. When came to the murders of his step-daughters, Wendy and Kristy Cox, Joseph Weldon Smith would receive two death sentences.

The Nevada Supreme Court would rule that Smith was entitled to a new sentencing hearing when it came to the death sentences due to an error made in jury instructions. In April of 1996 a new sentencing hearing was held and once again he was given two death sentences. In January 1998 the courts overturned the sentence pertaining to Kristy and it was commuted to life without parole. Once again it had been overturned due to an error in instructions. The courts had ruled that in order to get a death sentence the prosecution must prove that the murder included one or all of the following, torture, mutilation or depravity of mind. In 1996 the jury had found depravity of mind when it pertained to the murder of both girls and mutilation in the case of Wendy. Wendy had a total of thirty-two lacerations in the head area compared to the three suffered by Kristy.

Only time will tell if any of the proceedings will matter. The last execution in Nevada took place in 2006. There have only been twelve executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1979 in Nevada; eleven of those were inmates who voluntarily ended their appeals. They did have an execution scheduled for November of 2018 but in July it was given the status of indefinitely delayed due to a lawsuit involving the chemicals used. We have seen many such lawsuits as of late in many states but it seems that several states have either settled them or moved on to a different procedure. Executions have been on the decline since 2014. That year thirty-five inmates were executed from six states, not surprisingly Texas executed the most individuals. It was said to be the lowest number since 1994. In 2016 only twenty inmates were executed from five states and Georgia executed the most at 9. These numbers have lowered not just because of the issue with the chemicals but also for the fact that the death penalty is not only not sought as often as it once was, the state of Texas severely backed off. There used to be a joke that Texas had an express line to their execution chambers. From 1990 to 1999 Texas executed 166 inmates alone, that number jumped to 248 the next decade. Currently the number stands at 106 for them with a little more than a year to finish out the decade. They have eight more scheduled for 2018 (two within the next week). They have only scheduled one for 2019. So even if every person on the list is executed they look to end the decade at 114 executions.

I realize that Texas is obviously not Nevada but I used those statistics to show how many less Texas has performed. It appears as if Ohio is planning to take the lead from Texas in this decade. I am not certain that Texas had lawsuits with the issue of the chemicals or their death penalty law in which had them backing off so much, but I can say that a few cases out of Texas were brought to light that indicated there was a high possibility that innocent people were executed and that the “express lane” was not a good thing. Florida used to also be in high contention with Texas but between lawsuits pertaining to chemicals, like Nevada, and the legality of their written law they too backed off quite a bit.

Like Nevada, California has not performed an execution since 2006. Some believe that the lower numbers are a sign of communities not embracing the death penalty anymore, but that is not necessarily true. In a few states, like California, it has been the written word or legalities of how things have been written that have caused issues that courts have ruled upon. There have been several polls in California over the years asking their citizens if they are in favor of the death penalty and it has passed with what has been said to be overwhelming success. I believe that the numbers of executions will go up with in the next few years. California has over 700 inmates sitting on death row, many of which have ran out their appeals. Once they get things straightened out I foresee them being as Texas once was. Of course the difference between the two is that the inmates have waited several decades compared to the much shorter time Texas had between convictions and executions.

So, Joseph Weldon Smith may see the inside of a death house one day, but it seems pretty certain he will not be one of the exonerated.