Charges dropped against man arrested for November homicide
- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A Lakeport man arrested for the November murder of a Northshore resident has had the charges against him dropped.
District Attorney Susan Krones said that charges were dropped on Wednesday against 49-year-old Daniel Wayne Ford for the murder of Lucerne resident Nicky Dale Smith.
Ford is the second suspect in the case to have charges dropped against him.
However, Krones said that, depending on the findings of the ongoing investigation, new charges could be brought at a future time.
Smith, 70, was found murdered on the morning of Nov. 23 in the 4550 block of Scotts Valley Road in Lakeport, as Lake County News has reported.
Later that same day, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office arrested both Ford and 35-year-old Michael Sean Shaffer of Upper Lake for the murder.
In court filings made against Ford and Shaffer, the Lake County District Attorney’s Office said Smith was killed on Nov. 22, the day before his body was found.
The sheriff’s office said Smith’s autopsy concluded that he died of blunt force trauma and gunshot wounds. Court filings said he was killed by being beaten with a flashlight and shot with a handgun, both of which initially were believed to have been wielded by Ford.
Smith’s dark green Toyota Tundra pickup went missing at the time of his killing but was found on Dec. 9 in a remote location in the Scotts Valley/Eickhoff Road area, according to Lt. Corey Paulich.
Krones said materials that were found in the pickup are undergoing forensic testing.
While Krones said the initial investigation indicated Shaffer and Ford were the prime suspects, she has since decided to drop the charges against the men.
In mid-December, Krones decided not to pursue charges against Shaffer, citing new evidence as part of the ongoing investigation, including additional witness statements, but charges remained in place against Ford.
Krones said investigators have gotten more information since the arrests, with a lot of leads, people to interview and evidence to collect.
As a result, “I decided that at this time we don’t have sufficient evidence to go forward,” she said Thursday, the day after the charges against Ford were dropped.
Krones said she wants to wait for the results of the forensic testing to come back and reevaluate them. In the meantime, she doesn’t want to keep charges in place or file new charges until she has the results of that testing in hand.
“The forensics are going to tell us a lot, hopefully, but that takes time to get back,” she said.
The California Department of Justice is handling the testing. Krones said the most significant evidentiary items were sent first.
The hope is that results will be returned in a timeframe of between one and three months, but Krones said she didn’t know when that testing might be complete.
“It’s so hard to say,” she said. “They’re overworked, too.”
Krones said it’s possible that new charges could be filed in the case. Referring to Shaffer and Ford, she said, “These individuals were not just plucked off the street. There was some connection with this case, either as witnesses or defendants.”
She added that, if not charged, they could still be witnesses in the case.
Krones said there is a third individual who is being investigated as a possible suspect.
That man is in prison on other charges. “He’s not going to be going anywhere for at least a year,” she said.
What’s still isn’t clear is why Smith was targeted. Krones said she can only speculate at this point.
However, she did offer that what she termed as “common motivations” – such as theft and carjacking – could have been in play, as so far she has had no information that anyone wanted to kill him.
“All motivations are possibilities at this point,” she said. “But I think it was probably theft-related.”
In particular, she pointed to his stolen pickup, found more than two weeks after his death, which she said may have been the target.
“That’s the main suspected motivation,” she said.
It’s not yet clear what might have been taken from the truck. However, Krones said it appeared to still be drivable and wasn’t stripped.
While the charges in the Smith murder case have been dropped against Ford, he is remaining in custody to serve time in a misdemeanor battery case for which he was sentenced to jail time last year, said Krones, who also had handled that case.
She said Ford had been set to turn himself in to serve his time in that case on Nov. 26 but was picked up three days earlier on the Smith murder. He’s set to remain in jail until sometime in February.
“Even though he’s been in all this time, he would have been in any way on this sentence he had to serve,” she said.
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