It was the shocking murder that tormented Robert Redford for more than four decades – and still haunts the police department that couldn’t quite nail their man.
Redford’s daughter Shauna was dating Sidney Wells when he was killed while her father was filming one of his biggest hits, the baseball movie The Natural, more than 40 years ago.
And the attempt to find the main suspect in the case – Wells’s roommate Thayne Smika – is still ongoing to this day.
‘This case file is still very much active,’ Dionne Waugh, Boulder, Colorado, Police Department spokeswoman told Daily Mail.
‘We have not given up hope that Smika will be found. We continue to get new evidence, although we can’t talk about it openly,’ she added.
‘The detectives currently assigned to the case continue to get leads, and since most of the detectives originally assigned to the case are no longer with the department, new detectives are giving the case new eyes.’
Robert Redford was working on his movie The Natural when his daughter called him to say her boyfriend had been killed
Sid Wells and Shauna Redford had been dating for three years when he was murdered in 1983
Redford, star of such movies as All the President’s Men, The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance King, died on Tuesday aged 89.
Meanwhile, North Dakota-born Smika – known as Jungle Mike – would now be 66, but no-one is known to have seen him since 1986.
Retired Boulder deputy police chief David Hayes is convinced Smika is still alive, despite his family telling cops back in 2010 that he had passed away.
‘An investigation into his possible death turned up nothing,’ Hayes told Daily Mail.
The suspect, Wells’s roommate Thayne Smika vanished in 1986. He is still on the FBI’s most wanted list
‘There were no death records on file. Even if he died in a motel somewhere on his own, without any identification, the coroner would have taken fingerprints and been able to match them with the prints on file in Colorado.
‘We also continued to get reports of Smika being spotted,’ he added. ‘Friends of Wells and Smika, who knew them from Colorado, claim they saw him at the Orange County Flea Market in California, a few years back.
‘He has a unique look, and they were pretty sure it was him. He was also reported to have been seen at a Home Depot in Sacramento.
Retired Boulder County police chief David Hayes remains convinced that Smika is still alive, even though his family told authorities back in 2010 that he had died
The FBI issued a $10,000 reward for Smika’s capture in 2012 after multiple witnesses reported seeing him in California and police recovered his car – fueling theories he may have fled to Mexico
Shauna called her father in hysterics when she discovered that her boyfriend had been killed, saying he had been shot execution-style in his living room
‘So, I continue to believe he is still out there.’
Hayes, 69, said Robert Redford monitored the Wells case for years.
‘I spoke to Mr. Redford on more than one occasion,’ he said.
‘He took a personal interest in the case due to his daughter’s connection, but he was always polite and never pressured us. He just wanted updates.
‘He was very protective of his daughter and wanted to make sure we were doing everything we could to solve her boyfriend’s brutal murder.
‘I assured him we were.’
Shauna took the death of Wells very hard. Her father followed the case closely, regularly calling police to ask for updates
Wells’s brother Sam discovered his brother’s body lying face down on the living room floor after he was shot in the back of the head with a shotgun in his fifth-floor apartment at the Spanish Towers condo complex in Boulder, Colorado
Shauna’s boyfriend, Sid Wells, a 22-year-old journalism student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, was also in the ROTC and considering a life in the Navy
The FBI put out a $10,000 reward in 2012 but even that was not enough to shake Smika loose. Today, 42 years after the killing he remains on the FBI’s most wanted list.
Sid Wells was killed on August 1, 1983 – the day Smika’s monthly $300 rent was due for the room he leased in the fifth-floor apartment where Wells and his brother Sam lived.
The Wells boys’ mother June Menger had bought the high-end condo in the Spanish Towers complex in Boulder with money she had been awarded after their father was killed by a drunk driver.
Despite that windfall they needed help with the mortgage payments so advertised for a third roommate.
Smika was an obvious choice for the boys. When he applied, he seemed studious and quiet – and as an added bonus he had enough cash to pay a few months in advance.
But within a few months, his money started to dry up and he fell behind with his rent.
Sid, 22, a journalism student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, had met pretty blonde fellow student Shauna Redford three years earlier. It wasn’t until several weeks after they started dating that he discovered she was a superstar’s daughter.
Wells was killed on the same day Smika’s monthly $300 rent was due for the room he leased in the condo where Wells and his brother Sam lived
Shauna, also 22 at the time, had a condo in the same complex but often stayed overnight with her boyfriend. She had taken Sid to meet her famous father and the two got along famously.
‘Robert was very fond of the boy and thought he had a great future ahead of him,’ one friend of the actor who died Tuesday, told Daily Mail.
Redford was in Buffalo, New York, filming The Natural when Shauna called to tell him of her boyfriend’s death.
‘Shauna was hysterical when she reached him,’ said the pal. ‘She was crying and shouting down the phone at him that Sid had been shot to death execution style in his own living room.
‘Robert was heartbroken over his death and was deeply concerned about his daughter who was very much in love with Sid and planned a future with him.
‘Robert quickly halted production on the film and flew to Colorado to be at his daughter’s side.’
Redford rushed from the set of The Natural to Colorado after learning of Wells’s death, and was pictured arriving at Wells’s funeral to comfort his grieving daughter
Shauna went to her boyfriend’s funeral in Longmont, Colorado, The pair had been planning a future together and her father was especially fond of the young man
Sam Wells discovered his brother’s body lying face down on the living room floor when he returned from a weekend camping trip. Sid had been shot in the back of the head by a .20 gauge shotgun.
Sid – who dabbled as a small-time drug dealer – had accused Smika of stealing cocaine, according to a police affidavit unsealed three months after the killing.
The affidavit also said shotgun pellets taken from Wells’s body matched pellets found at Smika’s mother’s home and hair found on the scene matched hair taken from a shotgun cleaning kit owned by Smika.
Smika, then 24, was arrested but Boulder County District Attorney Alex Hunter did not believe he had enough evidence to convict because he thought the police inquiries had been mishandled.
It wasn’t until 1997 when new DA Stan Garnett uncovered new evidence, that the case was re-opened. A judge issued a warrant for Smika’s arrest, with a $5million bail, but he was nowhere to be found.
Police found his abandoned car in Beverly Hills, but it was thought he may have fled to Yelapa, south of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Shauna, now 64, married Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser in 1985 and the couple had two children
Sid Wells’s death was one of many tragedies that dogged Robert Redford throughout his life.
His mother died when he was just 18, his first child, Scott died of sudden infant death syndrome when he was only two and a half months old and his other son Jamie died from liver cancer in 2020 aged 58.
He has one other surviving child, Amy, 54, a filmmaker.
Shauna Redford, now 64, went on to find new love after Sid Wells’s death. She married Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser in 1985. The couple have two children.
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