CHEYENNE – The suspect in the 2015 double homicide at The Coin Shop has been charged with the murders of shop owner Dwight Brockman and Brockman's friend George “Doc” Manley.
According to the arrest affidavit, Douglas Smith, the original 911 caller on July 20, 2015, provided inconsistent evidence during different points of the nine-year investigation, which led detectives to believe that he was the shooter, not a witness.
Smith has been brought back to Cheyenne and had his initial appearance Friday in circuit court on two counts of first-degree murder. Smith told the court he would be hiring legal counsel from Just Criminal Law, a firm based out of Gillette. His preliminary hearing was scheduled for next Friday.
Smith will be held without bond until at least that time, meaning that he will remain in the Laramie County jail. Though Smith has no prior offenses, he is a Canadian citizen here illegally and has been charged with the most serious crime you can commit in Wyoming, Assistant District Attorney William Edelman said.
“In this case, justice was delayed, but it is important that it is served,” District Attorney Sylvia Hackl said after the hearing.
Smith made several contradictory statements between 2015 and 2023, which furthered the case against him. Though it has been nine years since the deaths of Brockman and Manley, the Cheyenne Police Department kept revisiting the case until they could make an arrest, Hackl said.
Smith has been a suspect throughout the investigation, but the information he provided as a witness delayed the case, according to the arrest affidavit.
“The information provided by Smith distracted and diverted Cheyenne Police Department resources during the early stages of the police investigation,” the arrest affidavit said.
“Smith initially called 911 and advised dispatch there was a robbery at The Coin Shop, and that ‘’Doc’ was in there shot.’”
In the initial investigation, Smith told dispatch that he saw the suspect pilfering the safe, then the man pointed a .45-caliber firearm at him and told him to leave the store. Once out of the store he said he would get photos of the shooter, which he was unable to get.
Smith told detectives that he had called the store at 9:22 a.m. the day of the shootings to see if the store was open before driving there. He told detectives he had left his phone in the car and grabbed reading material to exchange with another man, then went into The Coin Shop for about two to three minutes, entering the store after the shootings had occurred.
Phone records, street video footage and additional witness input disproved Smith's claims. Phone records showed that Brockman was, in fact, on the phone with David Helt from 9:20 a.m. to 9:24 a.m. and therefore couldn’t have spoken with Smith at 9:22 a.m. There is no phone record of Smith's alleged call to the store.
“If the fleeing suspect ran along Thomas Avenue, they would have been visible on the 400 W. 15th St. surveillance video, and if they ran south along O’Neil Avenue, Smith would have seen them from his vantage point,” according to the arrest affidavit. The report added that while there’s an additional walkway that the suspect could have run through, it is also visible from where Smith reports he was.
Detectives also questioned the man with whom Smith supposedly exchanged conspiracy theory reading material regularly. He told detectives he had never exchanged reading material with Smith.
In an interview on May 9, Smith told detectives that, “If you guys want to haul me back and throw me in jail, that’s fine,” though he denied shooting Brockman and Manley in that same interview.
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