January 4, 2014, 12:36 pm
Six days prior to the murder of the Bennett family, not officially connected at the time, a 50 year old woman named Patricia Smith was raped and then killed with a hammer in her Lakewood, CO home. In 2010, DNA evidence showed that it was the same killer.
Read more about Patricia Smith's murder here:
Serial killer bludgeons Lakewood woman with hammer
The Denver Post
When her daughter was divorced in 1983, 50-year-old Patricia Louise Smith moved with her daughter and two young grandchildren to a Green Mountain townhome. She wanted to help them adjust from their rural existence in Oshkosh, Neb. to the more fast-paced lifestyle in a big metropolitan area.
Patricia Smith, 50
It wasn’t an unusual gesture by the self-sacrificing Smith. Her daughter Chery (Sherry) Lettin, then 29, considered her mother her best friend.
The cheerful, loving woman was adored by her 6-year-old granddaughter Amber Reese and her 4-year-old grandson Joe Reese. The woman, who never spoke a harsh word, brightened all of their lives at a very traumatic time.
She wasn’t just staying for a short time, either. Smith left her farm semi-permanently while her husband, Oliver Henry Smith, kept his Nebraska government job. Smith started her own home interior design business. Her husband would often visit on weekends.
Smith, her daughter, and two grandchildren rented a townhome at 12610 W. Bayaud Ave. in Lakewood. After 3 1/2 months they had established a routine. Smith and Lettin would drive Amber to school for Kindergarten and Joe to a church day-care center.
Smith would then drive her daughter to a bus station on 6th Avenue and then drive to work. In the evening the process was reversed. Smith was very punctual and dependable. She always was waiting for her daughter at the bus station.
But on the evening of Jan. 10, 1984, she wasn’t there. That was very odd. Chery waited and waited. She called her mother’s home phone repeatedly but no one answered.
It got dark and cold. Finally Chery called her cousin Valerie, who picked Chery up at the bus station. Together they rushed to the church daycare, where she picked up both of her children after a friend took Amber there when school let out.
When they drove into the driveway of the townhome, Lettin saw flickering reflections on her mother’s upstairs bedroom window. It was apparent the TV was on. Her mother’s car was in the driveway. It was very strange.
