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The box of shotgun shells in the closet was three short. That was August 1983, in a condominium in Boulder, Colorado, and forty three years later it is still the reason there is an arrest warrant sitting in a drawer with nobody to serve it on.

Thayne Alan Smika is wanted for a murder which occurred on August 1, 1983. On that day, police officers responded to an incident at an apartment complex in Boulder, Colorado. A male victim was found in his apartment, lying on the living room floor, with a gunshot wound to his head. The victim was identified as Smika's roommate.
FBI, Wanted by the FBI

Who he was

Sid Wells was a University of Colorado student, about to start his senior year. He was 22. He shared an apartment in the Spanish Towers building in Boulder with a man named Thayne Alan Smika.

On August 1, 1983, officers found Wells in that apartment, on the living room floor, shot in the head. Local reporting describes the weapon as a 20-gauge shotgun and the wound as a single blast to the back of the head, fired at close range while he sat.

The evidence in the closet

Investigators did not have to look very far for the physical evidence, which is part of what has made this case so difficult to live with for everyone connected to it.

A 20-gauge shotgun, cartridges, and a box of shells were recovered from Smika's closet. The box was three shells short.

Investigators compared the shotgun pellets recovered from the shell that killed Wells against pellets from live rounds taken from Smika's residence. Police have said a possible motive was that Smika owed Wells 300 dollars in rent, due that day.

Smika was arrested about two months after the killing. He was not charged.

Thirty years of not being charged

A grand jury failed to indict him. Two successive Boulder County district attorneys declined to prosecute. Alex Hunter, the district attorney at the time, said he did not have enough evidence.

In 1986, Smika left Boulder. In October of that year, in Beverly Hills, California, his car was found empty and abandoned, wearing a stolen license plate. Nobody has reported seeing him since.

The case sat. Then Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett went back to it, and to the pellets. New evidence centered on the testing of shotgun pellets recovered from Sid Wells's body produced a result the earlier prosecutors had not had.

On December 2, 2010, a state arrest warrant for first degree murder was issued for Thayne Alan Smika by the County District Court in Boulder County. It was unsealed in January 2011. On December 13, 2010, a federal arrest warrant followed from the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, after Smika was charged federally with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

His bond is set at 5 million dollars. He has never been arrested on either warrant.

Theories

Smika has been charged. He has never been tried, never been convicted, and has not been seen in nearly forty years. Everything in this section is theory.

Police have said the possible motive was the rent money, 300 dollars owed and due the day Wells died. That is a police theory about a killing they have not been able to bring to court, and it should be read as one.

Police and members of the Wells family believe Smika changed his name and disappeared, and that he may have left the country entirely. The abandoned car in Beverly Hills with the stolen plate is the last hard fact in that chain; everything after it is inference. He would be in his mid sixties now.

The FBI has published age progression renderings showing what he may look like as an older man, bearded and clean shaven. They are computer generated images, not photographs of him, and they exist precisely because nobody has a current picture.

The part that made it famous

Sid Wells was dating a daughter of the actor Robert Redford at the time he was killed. That connection is a large part of why a student's murder in Boulder became national news, and it has followed the case through every retelling since, including network true crime coverage.

It is worth naming plainly, because it cuts both ways. The attention kept the case alive when it might otherwise have gone quiet. It also means Sid Wells is often introduced as somebody's daughter's boyfriend rather than as a 22-year-old about to start his last year of college, which is what he actually was.

His family turned the years of waiting into something else. The Wells family's response to the case led to the founding of a Colorado nonprofit that works on cold cases, and a new leader has since taken it over.

Where it stands

As of 2025 the case remains open, the warrant remains active, and Thayne Alan Smika remains at large. The evidence that finally produced a charge was sitting in an evidence locker for twenty seven years before anyone could make it say enough.

Sid Wells
Age 22, University of Colorado student
Killed: August 1, 1983, Spanish Towers, Boulder, Colorado
Wanted: Thayne Alan Smika, his roommate
State warrant: December 2, 2010, first degree murder, Boulder County
Federal warrant: December 13, 2010, unlawful flight to avoid prosecution
Bond: 5 million dollars
Last trace: abandoned car, Beverly Hills, October 1986, stolen plate
Status: charged and at large, never tried

Anyone with information can contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI, submit a tip at tips.fbi.gov, or contact the Boulder Police Department.