She’Ll Confront Sister’S Killer, Her Own Fury

Are there words to express the rage she feels for the brute who murdered her baby sister?

Can she articulate her contempt for a revolving-door justice system that gave a killer the freedom to kill again?

How do you condense 2-1/2 years of false hopes, emotional torment and pain onto a few sheets of paper?

The questions nag at Cynthia Rose like a recording set on endless replay. On June 3, the Medical Lake woman will return to a Vancouver, Wash., courtroom - this time, she hopes, with answers.

Rose’s family asked her to perform a most difficult task: Read their impact statements at the sentencing of the man who killed her 34-year-old sister, Carolyn Ruth Killaby.

Dennis Keith Smith, 36, met the medical technician by chance at Omar’s Steak House in Orchards, Wash., the night of Nov. 11, 1995. After a spat with her husband, Killaby went to the lounge alone to dance and drink. Rose describes her sister as a flamboyant and headstrong person who sported immaculate 3-inch fingernails.

Witnesses last saw the intoxicated woman being led outside by Smith.

Even with no body as evidence, it took a jury a mere 3-1/2 hours May 13 to convict the man of aggravated murder. Under state law, Smith will stay in prison forever.

It is shallow comfort.

Smith, who in 1982 strangled his sister and tried to hide her remains, isn’t saying what he did with Killaby. Her resting place is a mystery despite air and foot searches, bloodhounds and psychics.

Until she is found there can be no resolution.

“I’d like to not feel like he still has power over us,” Rose says. “He doesn’t deserve to live. But part of me wants to get down on my knees and beg him to tell us. Carolyn deserves to be in a place where we can take care of her.”

The Carolyn Killaby case was filled with twists and turns.

NBC’s “Unsolved Mysteries” had America looking for Smith after he fled Washington to avoid detectives. He was shot and captured in February 1997 after struggling with police in Florida.

Smith was ultimately done in by his own stupidity as well as cutting-edge science.

Detectives interviewed Smith during the first week of Killaby’s disappearance. He claimed he took her to his pickup for consensual sex, but that an angry man arrived afterward and dragged her away.

The intruder looked a lot like Killaby’s husband, Dan. Smith even picked Dan Killaby out of a photo lineup.

A red herring. Dan Killaby had already appeared on TV pleading for the whereabouts of his missing wife. There were pictures of Dan in Carolyn’s purse, which was never recovered.

Smith’s biggest slip was telling police he first heard during a Sunday afternoon party that Killaby was missing. Her disappearance wasn’t reported until Sunday night.

Then there was the pickup. Police believe Smith burned his truck’s passenger seat and cleaned the interior with disinfectant to hide evidence of a kidnap and rape that turned into murder.

Scientists still found a blood speck in the truck. The samples bore striking DNA comparisons to saliva taken from an envelope flap Killaby once licked.

Justice won in the end, but there never should have been a murder to begin with.

Smith had already received a life sentence for killing his sister, Patricia Johnson, following an argument. He was paroled in 1993 after serving only 10 years.

A parole violation sent him to a prison near Spokane. Rose, who attended the murder trial every day, says she was stunned to learn he had threatened to kill his wife in May 1995.

“Even his parole officer wanted to send him back to prison,” she says. “But the parole board took no action.”

Thanks to the system, Smith was a free man on Nov. 11, 1995.

“Friends tell me my sister was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Rose says. “That’s not true. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Smith should have been in prison. That’s what makes what happened to Carolyn so unfair.”