It took two years of intensely secret Denver grand jury work and endless hours of investigation by police and prosecutors, but their work bore fruit late Friday when a jury convicted gang member Tyrone Walker of killing a prosecution witness.
The dead man was David Smith, 26, a member of a national street gang that robbed banks in the Denver metro area and Kansas in the late 1990s.
It was through Smith that federal and local investigators learned how part of the gang – Smith and Walker – botched the July 23, 1997, robbery of the Colorado Community First National Bank, 6565 E. Evans Ave. in Denver. Inside the bank, Denver Detective Levert White shot Walker in the arm, but Smith and Walker escaped.
Later Smith came forward. As a result of Smith’s cooperation, Walker spent five years in prison for the bungled robbery.
“Without Smith’s cooperation, we would not have charged Tyrone Walker,” Jeff Russell, an Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent told the jury.
While he was in prison, Walker plotted the “heinous and cowardly” murder of Smith, prosecutor Henry Cooper said.
Walker, now 27, was released from prison in August 2002. On April 14, 2003, Walker fired two shots into Smith, who was sitting in the back seat of a car in front of the Kitty Hawk apartments at 1313 Xenia St. His body was dumped at University Hospital.
Police had no idea where Smith had been shot until two people told investigators that Smith had been shot outside the Kitty Hawk, Detective Joel Humphrey said after the verdict.
Cooper and numerous witnesses said that when Smith was murdered, the Kitty Hawk was a hangout for gang members and drug dealers. Police and prosecutors “shook the Kitty Hawk down,” talking to everyone who lived there and getting their phone records, said prosecutor Joe Morales.
During the two-year grand jury investigation, “we talked to everyone we possibly could,” Morales said.
Humphrey said witness killings are “very difficult, extremely difficult” cases to put together.
“There is a tremendous amount of fear of gang members in the community to begin with, and if they kill somebody, it just reinforces that fear,” Humphrey said. “There are still areas of the community where people are governed by the laws of the jungle.”
The jury convicted Walker of first-degree murder and retaliation against a witness. One witness testified he was sitting outside the apartments when he saw Walker go to the car, look in, and shoot into the back seat. A short time later, the man – who is not being identified because he fears retaliation – said he received a call from a person who was with Walker. During the conversation, he said Walker, who was in the background, kept yelling at him “to keep his mouth shut.” Walker will be sentenced later this month. He will receive a mandatory term of life without parole.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
