A man will spend decades in prison for murder in two fatal Aurora stabbings from last summer, a sentence that could be lengthened as a separate murder trial in the death of his Denver cellmate continues, court records show.
Ricky Roybal‑Smith, 38, was accused last summer of murder in three separate deaths. One victim was Roybal-Smith’s strangled cellmate in Denver’s Downtown Detention Center — where he was being held on suspicion of careless driving and leaving the scene of an accident — and two others who were stabbed to death in northwest Aurora, police said.
Roybal‑Smith was arrested in Denver for the hit-and-run on June 30, 2025, and Aurora police later linked him to two stabbings that happened on June 29, 2025.
The man took a deal and pleaded guilty to two charges of second-degree murder in the Aurora stabbings, which dropped two counts of first-degree murder, according to Adams County court records.
Adams County District Court Judge Brett Martin sentenced Roybal-Smith to 40 years in prison for each of the men’s deaths during a Monday morning arraignment hearing, court records show. The victims, 27‑year‑old Jesse Shafer and 61‑year‑old Scott Davenport, were both found dead with dozens of stab wounds on June 29, 2025.
Police used surveillance footage and witness interviews to piece together the timeline and identify Roybal‑Smith as the suspect who attacked and killed both men before fleeing the area, according to a news release from the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. He was already in custody at Denver’s Downtown Detention Center when Aurora police sent out a “be on the lookout alert” to other law enforcement agencies.
Investigators first connected the two stabbings because they were similar and happened near each other on the same morning, Aurora police said. Both victims were homeless at the time of their deaths, police said.
“These were horrific, senseless murders and the defendant will now spend the rest of his life behind bars,” 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason said in a statement. “Jesse Shafer and Scott Davenport were killed in acts of extreme violence carried out within a short time of each other. Today’s sentence holds the defendant accountable for the lives he took and for the fear and trauma he inflicted on our community.”
Roybal-Smith is scheduled to appear in Denver District Court on April 9 for a disposition hearing in the case of his cellmate’s death. The man alerted jail deputies that his cellmate, 35-year-old Vincent Chacon, was choking and needed help in the early morning of June 30, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Chacon died before paramedics arrived, and detectives found marks on the inmate’s neck that indicated it was more likely he had been strangled to death than that he choked to death on food.
Roybal-Smith previously pleaded guilty to vehicular assault charges in 2016 after leading Littleton police on a high-speed chase that ended with the man crashing into a parked SUV, according to previous reporting. Royal-Smith was sentenced to 12 years in prison for seriously injuring a person and avoiding arrest, but was released on parole in 2022.
He was arrested while still on parole for swinging a filet knife at a fellow customer in a Walmart store in Englewood and sentenced to four years in prison for felony menacing, police said. Roybal-Smith was released early on parole in January 2025.
