Vikings football team players in a sexual assault case in this area and had a reputation for winning. His father, Ron, had been the defense attorney for Marjorie Caldwell, the Duluth heiress who had been accused of conspiracy to kill her mother, Elisabeth Congdon, at the Glensheen Mansion in Duluth in 1977. Ron had won an acquittal in that case, and Steve had worked on that case with his father as a young attorney. Meshbesher had requested a bail hearing on December 18, and Judge Doug Anderson agreed to release him for fifty thousand dollars cash as long as he would relinquish his passport and stay in the state of Minnesota. Bruce set things in motion to get bail money. He called me in my office at the end of that day and was having trouble getting a check cashed to get fifty thousand dollars in cash. No bank would cash a Morgan Stanley check until it had cleared the bank it was written on, which would take about ten days. He had called me to ask if my bank would take this check if I cashed it. I doubted this because you would have to be a credit union member, but I would inquire for him. It was almost 4:00 p.m., so I went downstairs to ask the president of the credit union if she could help. I had worked with Margurite before. She purchased my homemade candles from me, a business I started about ten years ago. As I entered her office, I closed both of her doors so no one would hear my request. “The things I get myself into,” I first said. I told her that Byron Smith’s brother had a check to cash for his bail and was having trouble cashing it right away. He wanted to get Byron out of jail for Christmas. I told her he needed fifty thousand dollars in cash.
“Do you even have fifty thousand dollars cash in this bank?” I asked. She smiled and said, “Of course I can help you, but you have him sign the check over to you because you are the member. You are assured that it is good, right?”
“Yes, it’s good, that’s not a problem.” I told her that I would bring Bruce with me tomorrow morning to do the transaction. When I called Bruce and told him that my bank was good with this, he was elated and thankful. “I’ll be right over,” he said. He wanted discuss the details of the transaction.
Tuesdays were my days that I worked at the Albany Hospital. It was a thirty-five-mile drive that I enjoyed every Tuesday and Thursday. I told Bruce that we could go to the bank at 8:30 a.m. He would pick me up so we could get this cash, and then he could bring me back home so I could leave for work and then he could get Byron out of jail. We drove past the jail to see if any media were still camped out from the night before. News reports revealed they were all camped out waiting, finally, for a new picture of the famous Byron Smith. None of the news media actually knew what he really looked like beyond an awful mug shot. As we drove to the back of the jail, there didn’t seem to be any sign of news media. Bruce had a plan, though, to get his big parka and sunglasses and make a fast dash for the car. As we arrived at the bank, I knocked on her door as Margurite was finishing a phone call. She was usually not in this early as she worked later than most bankers. I felt a little uneasy as the other employees were staring at Bruce, the extremely tall, gray-haired man in his long, black wool coat. He definitely looked like a high-priced lawyer or some professional corporate executive, someone really important that was not usually seen around Little Falls. The cash was placed in a regular-size money bag, and I was somewhat astonished at how small a space fifty thousand dollars in cash actually took. After all, how often do you see that much cash? We sat in her office, and Bruce signed the Morgan Stanley check, and then I put my signature on the back as well. She asked me if I wanted to count the cash back. She had it in bundles of ten thousand dollars each. Five bundles fit snug into the zippered bag. I thanked Margurite for helping. Byron would have had to wait until after Christmas to be out of jail, and Bruce didn’t want him spending the Christmas holiday there, nor did Byron want to stay any longer. Margurite was asking Bruce questions about him. She said it wasn’t for her to judge him, or for anyone that matter to judge when you don’t know the whole story. My respect for her grew that day. If only everyone else thought that. She had asked where Byron would be staying then, and as she looked at me for an answer, I told my first white lie of many that I would tell people about where he would be living. I don’t know if it was fear of random people knowing or my own fear of what might happen if people found out his location. Most of my fear generated from the Little Falls High School where Dilan attended daily and how the kids, who were burglars, seemed to be memorialized. I told Margurite that I didn’t know and that Bruce and his attorney were talking about living arrangements. Steve Meshbesher was a very prominent name in the field of law and he didn’t come cheap—one hundred thousand dollars retainer to start. Meshbesher explicitly stated that he didn’t want Byron back in his home. Bruce and I had this discussion the night before about where Byron would stay. He couldn’t, of course, go back home. The scene was not cleaned, and investigators (from his defense team) still needed to view it. We left the bank, and as quickly as I wanted to get out of there without being seen, only one employee noticed me with the tall, black-coated, strange man. Hopefully she would ask no questions. Bruce drove me back home so I could begin my work day.
When I got home from work that afternoon, I walked into the back door to be greeted with a big hug from Byron. It was a tight hug from someone who was very thankful to be free. He had been in jail since November 23, and it was now December 18. All were gathered in my kitchen discussing the events and telling Byron what had been discovered about the teens that he had shot and that they were part of a small gang of kids who dabbled in drugs that had been robbing him over and over and over. He couldn’t believe that he had been betrayed by Cody Kasper, someone that he had wanted to teach him to deer hunt, and hired to do yard work. He was astonished beyond belief as we told him who the attackers on his home had been. Attackers was Byron’s word for the teens. It was how he felt about who they were. He had sat in jail knowing virtually nothing about the two intruders. His first words, as he contemplated all the information, were, “How can we teach kids ethical behavior?” His purpose in life was still the mission he had always lived by, teaching kids to be successful and proud of their accomplishments. How ironic that these teens would pick his home to burglarize and how ironic it was that his occupation had been international protection when he personally needed protection when he moved back to his hometown. He had always felt safe all over the world, but he had to come back to his hometown to feel unsafe.
History of Events Leading Up to November 22, 2012
1 In early June of 2012, Cody Kasper, along with Nick Brady, drove Brady’s red car up to the Smith property looking for work. They had previously made other visits but didn’t find Smith at home. Byron turned them away as he was going to do all his yard work himself that year.
2 Shortly after that, Byron was hearing his doorbell ring between midnight and 2:00 a.m. about once a week. When he got up to answer, no one could be seen. This continued through September and increased to two times each week. He could see no one when he turned on the lights to check the door.
3 During the first week of July, $3,200 in cash was stolen from his home. Byron thought he might have misplaced it so didn’t report it, plus it would be impossible to recover. (Later he noted that when he was doing yard work, he left his home unlocked and would not have noted persons entering his home if he was working down by the river.)
4 During late summer of 2012, he noticed many misplaced/missing items, later to be found stolen. He went to an annual Boy Scout weekend, where friends noticed him nervous and withdrawn but said nothing. These friends were from Avon, Elk River, and a professor of Environmental Science at SCSU. In mid-September, he missed a regional scout meeting for the first time due to the fear he was being burglarized. Around September 10, he noticed two missing guns. The paranoia really set in, and Byron was afraid to leave his house, afraid to leave tools on his work bench. He began installing dead bolts, locking vehicles inside the garage, and hiding valuables and went to Walmart to purchase the missing rifle and Iron Hills Pawn to replace the shotgun.
5 In early October, he reversed the doorbell tone to verify that he was not dreaming when the doorbell rang. When it rang in reverse for the first time, he knew he was not dreaming and the doorbell ringing was intentional, but he still could not see anyone. He finally knew that someone was wanting to know if he was home or not.
6 The weekend of October 14,
