Did Byron David Smith Have the Right to Shoot 2 Teens to Death in a Thanksgiving Home Break-in?

As the residents of Belle Prairie Township, a community of just over 600 people near Little Falls, Minn., prepared for a Thanksgiving feast in 2012, one well-armed man spent the day isolated in his basement, waiting for a set of teenagers to break into his home.

The shooting stirred a national conversation about extreme justice and stand your ground legislation.

As the debate continues, two teenagers are dead and the homeowner remains imprisoned for life. 

Byron David Smith was polarizing as a neighbor. Some regarded him as a pillar who volunteered for a Boy Scout program and hired high school kids to do chores around the house. Others saw him as an oddball who fired weapons on his property, potentially harming nearby children. He was a security specialist who protected U.S. embassies around the world, but the Vietnam vet couldn’t seem to protect his own home. 

After hiring Nick Brady and a few other teens to stack wood and other tasks, Smith noticed that some of his belongings, including a shotgun, were missing. On October 27, 2012, he reported a break-in in which criminals stole cash, gold coins, two guns, photo equipment and jewelry. He told authorities about two earlier break-ins, but he hadn’t reported them at the time because he felt they weren’t “significant enough.”

As Thanksgiving approached, the retired security engineer fortified his property with surveillance cameras. Smith’s brother claimed the house was a target because it sits on a rural 12-acre compound isolated from most neighbors. 

Brady, 17, and his cousin, Haile Kifer, 18, already had a history with law enforcement when they decided to rob Smith’s home on Thanksgiving Day in 2012. Both were linked to a burglary the day before. 

On Thanksgiving morning, after spotting a neighbor he suspected of being behind the robberies, Smith moved his vehicle farther away from the usual parking spot so that his home appeared empty and “entered surreptitiously through his home’s rear entrance, and went into the basement,” according to a U.S. District court filing. He secured provisions for a stakeout: snack bars, a water bottle, a semi-automatic rifle, a revolver side arm and a novel. He turned on an audio recorder, sat in a reading chair and monitored the four exterior security cameras.

At 12:33 p.m., Smith observed Brady’s shadow as he looked into the windows and tried doorknobs. The audio recording Smith made became public record and offers an eerily detailed account of what happened next: Brady broke a window leading to a bedroom and entered. Two minutes passed before he opened the basement door and walked down the stairs. Smith waited until he saw Brady at hip level, then shot him twice in the chest with the rifle. Brady stumbled down the stairs to the floor, face up. He stared up at Smith, who fired a third round in his face and declared, “You’re dead.” The crackling sound of camouflage tarp echoed as Smith wrapped Brady in it, then dragged him to a corner of the basement, out of sight from the entrance. He then reloaded his rifle.

Eight minutes after Brady was shot, Kifer was inside the house, softly calling out his name. She descended the basement stairs. Again, Smith waited until he saw Kifer at hip level, then shot her with the rifle. He tried to shoot again but the rifle jammed. She let out a nervous laughter, which upset him. “If you’re trying to shoot somebody and they laugh at you, you go again,” he told police. 

Smith then pulled out his revolver and shot Kifer in the chest several times, which he admitted was “more shots than I needed to.” He told her, “You’re dying,” then fired again and muttered, “Bitch.” Smith dragged her body next to Brady’s. According to court records, he noticed that she was gasping for air, so he positioned the gun to shoot her a sixth and final time which he described as “a good clean finishing shot.”

After killing the teenage cousins, he rattled semi-coherent ramblings about cleaning up a mess: “I don’t see them as human. I see them as vermin, social mistakes.”

He never notified the police. Instead, he waited until morning to call a neighbor and inquire about contacting an attorney and suggesting they call the sheriff’s office. 

Jeremy Luberts, the case’s lead investigator and the first on the scene, tells A&E Crime + Investigation he interviewed Smith three times. “Not once did he mention that recorder,” Luberts says. “It happened to be a lucky chance that the digital audio recorder was found. We found the Holy Grail piece of evidence in the case.”

Smith’s defense was that he employed reasonable use of force. A unanimous jury disagreed. He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. 

The case gained national attention, stirring a debate about the limits of self-defense and highlighting stand your ground laws that some argue actually make matters worse. 

Minnesota’s Castle Doctrine law allows the use of deadly force to resist or prevent a felony in one’s home.

Sean Hannity defended the shooting on Fox News. His guest, Bernard McGuirk, said Smith should “get a Medal of Freedom for what he did” because “he protected himself.” 

The additional shots Smith fired after the teens were subdued is what concerned many. "The law doesn't permit you to execute somebody once a threat is gone," Morrison County Sheriff Michel Wetzel told the Associated Press.

After Smith’s conviction, his army of supporters began harassing Luberts. The investigator says the case cost him his health and marriage. “For medical reasons, I had to retire three years ago,” Luberts shares. “I ended up with multiple sclerosis. I got degenerative disc disease. I had two spinal surgeries. I’ve got kidney disease. A lot of stress-related illnesses were because of all the stress I had to deal with in my career and in large part because of this case.” 

Luberts wound up writing a book about the crime, primarily as therapy. Released in 2023, Murder on Elm Street details the investigation. The Brainerd Dispatch reported that Smith filed a lawsuit for defamation in August 2025. 

“My opinion is he wanted revenge,” Luberts says. “He wanted revenge for the prior burglaries. To this day he does not take responsibility for what he did.”