There was an underlying theme that came out this past Friday (Feb.20) when TNT aired the episode of Cold Justice that focused on the murder of 67-year-old Kyle Smith back on July 12, 2006. It was the same thing I noticed and heard time and time again after it happened.

 

The theme was a simple one and one that made the still unexplained death of Smith all that more difficult to understand. And the theme was that Kyle Smith was a kind and gentle soul that kept to himself for the most part and would never hurt another.

 

During the recent TNT show, you heard family members say the same thing about Kyle. You heard Bridgeport Police talk about him in much the same manner. And if you ask anyone today who knew him, you’d hear the same thing.

 

It would be impossible for me to try and talk to everyone that knew Kyle – I did not know him – that thought fondly of him. Because of that, I figured there was someone out there that could sum up Kyle Smith the man fairly succinctly. I found that person in Bridgeport resident Dee Riley Horne. Horne had made a comment on the Connect-Bridgeport.com Facebook page about Smith that I thought deserved even more discussion and might give me what I was looking for as to the type of human being Smith, in fact, was.

 

For once, I was 100 percent correct.

 

When I contacted Horne, she agreed to share her story with me. When finished, it painted a picture of kindness, of perhaps some loneliness and definitely a snap shot of a man who didn’t deserve the fate that befell him on that hot summer day.

 

“We’ve didn’t actually live near Kyle, but we met him through church,” said Horne. “He attended Evangel Baptist Church and that’s where we got to know him and that’s how we got to really like this every gentle man who we found out had a huge heart.”

 

I asked Dee to explain to me what it was that made him special; why she knew he had a big heart. I wanted her to describe him to me.

 

“I can’t pull out an adjective to describe him, but I know he was of limited means and there were some that snubbed him because of it,” said Horne. “But Kyle was too good of a person to let anything like that bother him. I don’t know how to properly describe him because there was so much good about him.”

 

When Dee and her husband John met Kyle, she said they weren’t exactly swimming in wealth. She said John worked and she was busy full time at home raising five children. Yet, she said she remembered her family felt it was important to help out Kyle Smith when they could.

 

“Every week we would load up a box of vegetable or canned vegetables and maybe some boxes of macaroni and cheese – things he could easily fix – and we’d leave it on his porch,” she said. “We tried to help him even though our own means were limited. I don’t know if he knew, but he would pay us back in one of the kindest gestures possible and in one of the ways that he could pay us back.”

 

Since the murder and during the show, Smith’s love of gardening in what was a sizable back yard just off of Philadelphia Avenue near Center Street produced quite the bounty. Many neighbors I talked with after the murder mentioned his garden and all that he grew. And he had no problem sharing his take.

 

“Eventually, we’d always find bags of tomatoes, corn on the cob, or whatever he grew on our porch, and for a while we didn’t know who did that because he never put a note with those  bags,” said Horne. “Eventually, I noticed the bags with him a few times when he was delivering our newspaper.”

 

From there, the friendship grew. Horne said the family would always invite Kyle Smith to their house for various holiday dinners from Easter and Thanksgiving to Christmas. He never accepted.

 

“He wouldn’t come on the holidays and would gracefully decline,” said Horne. “We’d end up fixing a tray of food and taking it down and he was just so appreciative.”

 

While he didn’t come up to the Horne household for holiday dinners, he did come by the home. And he did so to entertain the Horne’s five children.

 

Corn stalk, bring one of those. I never knew for sure.

 

 

 

“He would come up and tease with all my children and he’d got to this den we have in the back of the house … He’d stretch out on the floor and say ‘c’mon kids, I’m going to tell you a story. He was the best story teller,” said Horne. “I can remember how much I hated history and I thought to myself if he was telling stories about history, I’d listen. He had a great voice for stories and my kids loved when he came up and told stories.”

 

That, however, wasn’t the thing that struck Horne about his kindness. Rather, it came in the late 1980s. Her husband John, a long-time employee of Parsons-Souders and then Stone & Thomas in Clarksburg, lost his job when the store relocated to the Meadowbrook Mall. Because of that, things were tough at the Horne household.

 

“Kyle was still delivering papers when that happened and I met him outside and told him that John had lost his job and we were cutting back expenses and the newspaper was one of them. The next morning and the next morning and after that, the newspaper kept coming,” she said. “I finally met Kyle one morning and told him we really couldn’t afford the paper.

 

“He just looked at me and in this really peaceful and direct voice he told me that she didn’t need to worry about paying for a paper that he had a few extras,” she continued. “He said, ‘Listen here young lady, your husband needs a job and he needs a paper to look through the help wanted section to get work for this family.’ That was that. He was just a wonderful man. He had so little, but he’d give you anything he had.”

 

Now, Horne is like so many others in Bridgeport and beyond that watched the recent Cold Justice episode trying to solve Smith’s murder. She hopes the show gives him and his family what they deserve – peace.

 

“The poor man needs to rest in peace and his family deserves closure,” said Horne. “He wouldn’t harm a soul and deserved a better fate. I just hope this show makes it right not just for the community, but right for one of the most decent human beings I’ve ever known.”

 

Click HERE for Chief John Walker's thoughts on the case, a possible filing of charges and also the complete video for those that missed it or would like to watch it again.

 

Editor's Note: Photos of Kyle Smith, including one in his garden, from "Cold Justice" screen shots. Also, at 9 a.m., a story where Chief John Walker gives his thoughts on the show, how difficult cases such as this are and what he thinks about charges being filed in the future.