True Crime Stories Volume 4: 12 Shocking True Crime Murder Cases (True Crime Anthology) by Jack Rosewood

Author:Jack Rosewood [Rosewood, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-10-11T20:00:00+00:00

The Murder of Ralph Smith

The evening of October 22, 1971, began like any other in the home of fifty-one-year-old Ralph Smith. He kissed his wife and three children goodbye and drove off in his cab to work for the night.

According to his family, Ralph Smith always took precautions and was not known to take chances while working. He carried a pistol with him at all times when he was working and was considered a pretty good judge of character. He avoided picking up fares that looked too drunk or drugged out and he was always cautious in high crime neighborhoods.

But no matter how careful a person can be, one can never avoid every pitfall.

When Ralph did not return home from work early the next morning, his wife was not immediately worried. She thought that he probably had a good night and picked up some extra fares.

Then she received the call from the Raleigh Police Department. Ralph had been shot and killed.

Ralph’s body was found lying on the front seat of the cab with his unused pistol at his side and twenty-nine dollars in his wallet. The police speculated that it was a robbery gone wrong and that Ralph had pulled his gun after the robber had pulled his. Unfortunately, Ralph was slower on the draw.

The Smith family was devastated by the news.

“I was a torn wreck,” said Ralph’s daughter, Dorothy Smith. “I couldn’t sleep. Most nights, all I could see was my daddy.”

Smith’s murder immediately garnered a significant amount of media attention for a number of reasons. The killing took place just south of Raleigh’s downtown, within a few blocks of the state capitol and the downtown entertainment district.

Smith’s family and fellow cabbies took advantage of the early media attention by appealing to the public for anyone with information to come forward and a reward was offered.

Although Raleigh, like most big American cities, had its share of crime in the early 1970s, the murder of a cab driver made the case a particularly high profile crime and one that the police dedicated special attention toward solving. A number of police officers who were on patrol heard the fatal shots so they made it their personal mission to catch Smith’s killer.

But despite the extra media and police attention that was given to Smith’s murder, few leads came in and the case quickly went cold.

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