A California man accused of gunning down two men at a Cheyenne coin shop in 2015 won’t face the death penalty, and now has an opportunity to be released from custody pending his trial, but he’ll need to pony up a lot of cash to do so.
On Monday, Judge Steven Sharpe set a $500,000 bond for Douglas Mark Smith, 68, who is facing two counts of first-degree murder for allegedly killing two people in 2015 at The Coin Shop in downtown Cheyenne.
Smith, who was a Cheyenne resident at the time, is accused of shooting and killing two men in the shop, then intentionally leading investigators in the wrong direction immediately afterward.
Smith claims he witnessed the alleged murderer stealing from The Coin Shop’s cash drawer after killing the two people inside, Dwight Brockman, 67, and his friend George Manley, 76, during that year’s Cheyenne Frontier Days.
He had long been a key witness in the case, but it wasn’t until authorities interviewed Smith again in California in 2023 that serious inconsistencies in his retelling of the event started to emerge.
Authorities arrested Smith in June at his mobile home in California and had him extradited back to Laramie County, where he has been in custody since.
In July, Smith pleaded not guilty to the crime, which carries a mandatory life sentence in prison.
No Death Penalty Opens Up The Door
Earlier this month, the Laramie County District Attorney’s Office announced it will not seek the death penalty for Smith.
By making the announcement the state won’t seek capital punishment, Smith became eligible for bond.
His attorney, Rob Oldham, had requested bond for Smith in a filing earlier this month.
It’s not clear if Smith will be able to afford the hefty $500,000 bond. As of Tuesday morning, he was still in custody.
Smith is a Canadian citizen who has lived in America off and on throughout his life, a status which has given prosecutors concern about offering him an attainable bond.
According to his motion for bond, Smith moved to Canada with his wife after the murder in 2016, but then returned with her to California in 2019, where had lived until arrested this summer.
No Evidence?
In his request for bond, Oldham criticized the state’s case against his client, saying it lacks new evidence directly connecting him to the crime besides inconsistencies in Smith’s recollection of the double murder that took place nine years ago.
“This shows a lack of due diligence on the part of law enforcement for almost a decade,” Oldham wrote.
Oldham also mentioned how Smith stayed at the scene of the crime after the murder and never avoided talking to authorities at any time after.
“During the nine years the police were unable to establish probable cause for an arrest, there is no indication that the defendant took steps to make himself unavailable,” Oldham wrote in the filing.
What Oldham neglects to mention is the two red spots that were identified on Smith’s shirt that he wore on the day of the murder. Results from testing the shirt show two DNA profiles from the fibers of the shirt, one belonging to Smith and the other not identifiable.
Smith is scheduled for a Dec. 3 jury trial.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
