CHEYENNE – A Laramie County Circuit Court judge has sent the first-degree murder case against Douglas Smith in connection with the 2015 double homicide at The Coin Shop to district court.
At the end of a preliminary hearing Friday morning, Judge Sean C. Chambers bound the case against Smith over for an arraignment hearing, which has yet to be scheduled.
On July 20, 2015, Smith called 911 to report what he described as an armed robbery in progress. He told dispatch that “Doc,” referring to George “Doc” Manley, was shot. He then said he would try to get photos of the suspect, who he described as a 5-foot, 3-inch to 5-foot, 4-inch tall Hispanic man with nondescript features.
Smith provided conflicting statements between 2015 and 2023, ultimately leading to his arrest June 25. His account of events was disproved by phone records, video footage of the surrounding scene, witness accounts and observations of the crime scene, according to the affidavit of probable cause.
Smith was arrested in California on two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of shop owner Dwight Brockman and Manley. He was later extradited to Cheyenne to face the charges.
In court Friday, Cheyenne Police Detective James Pendleton restated the instances in which Smith had recounted conflicting events to detectives. For example, Smith claimed to be on the phone with Brockman – which there is no record of – at 9:22 a.m., when records showed Brockman to be on the phone with his smelter, David Helt.
Pendleton told the court that Smith physically could not have seen the two victims the way he described them in his initial interviews if he had only been at the front of the store the day of the homicides.
In his initial account of events, Smith told detectives that he could see Brockman lying on the ground and Manley shot in the head. Based on documentation of the initial scene, Smith would not have been able to see Manley’s head at all, nor would he have been able to see Brockman's entire body, Pendleton told the court.
Smith had not initially been a suspect in 2015 and wasn’t arrested at any point in the investigation until this year, though Smith believed he had always been a suspect.
His car was never searched for the weapon or the reading material he claimed to have with him. Smith reported that the reading material was his only reason for being in the shop that day.
In an interview conducted at the Riverside County Sheriff's Department in Palm Beach, California, on May 9, 2023, Smith was told that detectives had observed “damning evidence” on the shirt he was wearing the day of the incident, Pendleton testified.
Smith asked questions indicating that he knew the evidence was stains on his shirt that the detectives suspected to be blood, even though Pendleton hadn’t yet revealed that information to Smith, according to the affidavit of probable cause.
Several examples of these inconsistencies were described in court Friday. Pendleton was questioned about the validity of the evidence, which the defense described as “all circumstantial.”
Detectives were never able to confirm that a robbery had taken place, and Smith did not appear to be in possession of any items from the shop at the time, Pendleton testified.
The defense asked that the court reconsider Smith's no bond hold, on account of his cooperation in the investigation. His lawyer said that he is unlikely to flee, as he had plenty of time to do so and never did, even returning to the U.S. from Canada, when he could have stayed in the country in which he is a citizen. The defense requested that a bond of $50,000 be set, saying that Smith would be willing to surrender his Canadian passport and wear an ankle monitor if he were to make bond.
Because of the severity of the crime and the likelihood that Smith could flee to Canada, Assistant District Attorney William Edelman advised the court to maintain Smith’s no bond hold, and if the court were to consider a bond, Edelman advised that it be $1 million cash only.
“There’s only one person who could have done this, and that’s the defendant,” Edelman told the court.
Judge Chambers upheld Smith's no bond hold. The date of Smith's arraignment has not yet been set.
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