Mar 18, 2008 - 04:24 PM

 DURHAM - In a stunning development, Durham police have charged a Cobourg man with the 33-year-old murder of Beverly Smith.

Mrs. Smith, then 22, was shot in the back of the head and left to die on her kitchen floor in Raglan (north Oshawa) on the evening of Dec. 9, 1974. On Monday, Durham Regional Police charged Alan Smith, 56, (no relation) of Munson Crescent, Cobourg, with second-degree murder.

Mr. Smith was Beverly’s next-door neighbour at the time of the murder and it was his wife who found her body.

The arrest comes a month after police joined the murdered woman’s daughter and twin sister in one last attempt at solving the murder.

A neighbour on the quiet street in Cobourg where Mr. Smith now lives with his adult daughter and granddaughter, was surprised when she came home for lunch Monday to find Durham Regional Police cars parked on the street.

“He’s nice enough and that’s really shocking,” the neighbour, who asked to remain anonymous, said of Mr. Smith. She said Mr. Smith moved to the house last May.

A nearby resident, who also wouldn’t give his name, said they’re, “nice quiet, pleasant people. Nothing special, nothing strange. Just regular neighbours in a quiet neighbourhood.”

But neighbour Maren Cook had reservations about Mr. Smith.

“(I) thought right from the beginning there was something peculiar. I had a strange feeling about him. He offered to help shovel my snow, but would then come with his hands out, ‘That will be $15.’

“He also offered to do yard work for me but I changed my mind about the yard work.”

Beverly Smith’s husband, Doug Smith, had no comment when asked about the arrest Tuesday.

Durham Regional Police spokesman Dave Selby said, “Certainly the purpose of the press conference (last month) was to get the message out that we don’t box cases like this up in Durham Region. They continue to stay alive.”

On Feb. 4, Durham Police Inspector David Kimmerly was joined by Beverly’s Smith’s now adult daughter Rebecca, and Ms. Brown, in making a public plea for information on the case.

Mrs. Smith, mother of a 10-month-old daughter and the wife of a GM worker, was signing Christmas cards in the living room of her Old Simcoe Road home before opening the door to a visitor, Insp. Kimmerly said.

She was found dead by neighbours who went to the house after being notified by her worried husband, who called home during the evening and got no answer.

No arrests were made in the 1970’s, although investigators identified persons of interest, including Mrs. Smith’s husband, who was cleared after co-operating with police. The file was re-opened from time to time since then and in the spring of 2007 a team of dedicated investigators was struck to start from scratch, Insp. Kimmerly said.

Police interviewed more than 200 people across Canada and in the United States and had asked some people to submit DNA and fingerprint samples.

The fact that no one in the tight-knit community reported seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary on the night of the killing had led police to believe the murder was committed by a local person, Insp. Kimmerly said. Reinforcing that theory was the absence of signs of forced entry; it appears Mrs. Smith let the killer into her house.

Insp. Kimmerly said circumstances, including the way in which Mrs. Smith was killed, don’t point toward a spontaneous event.

“Whoever came brought a firearm with them,” he said, noting the murder weapon was never found.

Speaking directly to the killer, Rebecca, who didn’t want her last name used, appealed to the guilty person’s conscience: “I understand you were young at the time and you may regret your actions of that night,” she said.

“Now I’m asking you to give my family and my mom, and even yourself some peace.”