The Byron Smith criminal case and double homicide in Little Falls will be the pilot episode for a new TV series on Investigation Discovery or ID on Wednesday.
The series "Hear No Evil" follows on the ID series "See No Evil," which uses footage from surveillance cameras along with documentary interviews of the people involved, as well as actors to reconstruct the events depicted in criminal cases.
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For "Hear No Evil" the series is using interviews, dramatic recreations and the recordings made by Smith in the shooting deaths of two Little Falls teenagers.
Smith is serving two concurrent life sentences, without the possibility of parole, for killing the teenagers who broke into his home in Little Falls in 2012.
Smith, 68, was convicted by a jury in Morrison County District Court of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of Haile Kifer and Nick Brady, who broke into his home in Little Falls on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 22, 2012.
Smith, a retired security engineer with the U.S. State Department and Little Falls native, said he was defending himself.
The state's prosecutor, Washington County attorney Peter Orput, said during the trial Smith crossed the line between self-defense and murder. Prosecutors said after wounding the teenagers, who were unarmed, Smith should have called police. Authorities said Smith planned the killings, moved his vehicle away from the home, sat in his basement as surveillance equipment nearby showed the teenagers breaking in, shot them repeatedly and in the head after they were wounded and on the basement floor. Smith made audio recordings of that Thanksgiving Day.
"In Little Falls, Minnesota, a retiree's peace is shattered by a home break-in, culminating in a gruesome double homicide," ID stated on its website about the show. "Investigators discover audio recordings of the killings, revealing what really happened and the killer's true motives."
