see their faces as they were coming down.” The stairway is narrow, and his chair faces the stairs from the side. He went on to tell me that if he is found guilty, he will make a public statement that lets all criminals know that they can be safe in the city of Little Falls because criminals are welcome here and are protected declaring that a homeowner is not protected by the sheriff’s office. His motto for criminals was, “Come to Little Falls! Nothing will happen to you.” I was standing there thinking how sad it would be if he really was found guilty. It is not a concept I had given much thought to. Sadness and anxiousness overcame me, and I just wanted to immediately leave his home. On the walk back, I noticed that the neighbor girl was outside smoking a cigarette. This was the same girl that Byron suspected of stealing his military jacket and leaving a joint in one of his cars. She had been there when we walked by upon entry and had stood there and took a picture of us walking by with her camera. For what reason, I am not sure.
Byron has stopped the video recording of the Elm Street traffic this week. He says he has enough information to submit to the DEA.
On Easter Sunday 2013, Byron is recollecting the event of his Thanksgiving Day events to Mr. St. Onge, who is visiting our home this evening with his young son. Here is how he tells it: He is downstairs reading. He hears someone trying to get in the door. It rattles. The intruder tries another door. It rattles too. He has double locked them because of previous break-ins. He sees the shadow of a person moving across the wall downstairs. Maybe they will go away because all doors are locked and dead bolted. He hears them now upstairs, running across the wooden deck. He hears them try more doorknobs. Suddenly a window is breaking. He hears glass shatter now. He is in fear for his life. “This is gonna be bad,” he says to himself. He stops the story there and says the rest will come out in court. George St. Onge came over to visit because he, too, has been burglarized many times at his business where he sells motorcycle parts outside Little Falls. He actually has trails leading outside his property where thieves have entered his property so many times. He has called the sheriff’s department only to be told, “There is not much we can do.” Mr. St. Onge could identify with Byron’s frustrations with being burglarized so many times as Byron had with no results in finding out who was committing the crimes and getting the property back.
Chapter 4
Coping
On April 23, a grand jury was summoned to decide if there was enough evidence to change the charge from second-degree murder to first degree. It seems as if the lead prosecutor, Pete Orput, wanted to make a name for himself, and rumor was that he wanted to run for attorney general, so this case might gain him the public recognition he might be seeking. It was stated by several locals in the bakery one day that he said this little town was going to make him famous. Upon hearing all this, Byron felt he had been literally bullied by a bunch of thieves and now he was being bullied by the local justice system. Byron wished he had remained overseas in his retirement. The only reason he came back to Little Falls was to take care of his mother, who had broken her hip, so he took an early retirement. He told me, among others, that the most unsafe place for him ended up being Little Falls, Minnesota. The criminal teens who took part in the burglaries of his home were still attending school, running around town, going on with their lives, seemingly without much punishment. Byron Smith had to be relocated out of his own home, and his old opportunities to be a Boy Scout adviser and judge science fairs were no longer a part of his life. They were his life before last Thanksgiving Day. Cody Kasper went to court again on Wednesday because last week he had a test, so the judge rearranged the court schedule to accommodate him. Byron hired a lawyer for his neighbor, Bill, who had been served with a subpoena to appear in front of the grand jury to upgrade his charge. The neighbor was going to be questioned about Byron’s phone call to him on the day after Thanksgiving when Byron asked him to call a lawyer. The prosecutor was allowing this attorney into the courtroom but was not happy with the situation. Meshbesher seemed to think the prosecutor wanted to discredit the neighbor as a witness for the defense or possibly charge him as an accessory. None of us ever knew any details about his previous burglaries. The reason Byron never mentioned anything to us was that he wanted to see if law enforcement was doing their job. If a neighbor had a fifty-thousand-dollar burglary, would one not expect an investigation in the neighborhood to see if any of us had seen a strange car or suspicious people in the neighborhood?
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