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A man accused of killing his neighbor in a long-standing property dispute has been ordered detained pending trial.
U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells ruled Friday that defendant Timothy Lee Smith constitutes a risk to the community and also poses a risk of non-appearance for hearings. She pointed to Smith's history of assault charges and failure to appear in previous cases as reasons for her decision.
Smith, 45, is accused of fatally shooting 62-year-old Maranny Hatalie Holiday last Nov. 30 on the Navajo reservation in San Juan County, just yards into Utah from the state's border with Arizona. He was indicted in January by a federal grand jury on charges of first-degree murder within Indian country and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
At a Friday hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Holly Shick alleged Smith had told investigators that he and Holiday got into an argument about a sweat lodge on his property and he punched the woman.
Holiday slumped down to the ground and Smith said he got a .22-caliber pistol from his house, according to Shick. She said Holiday was still on the ground when Smith came back outside and shot her.
"He said, 'I promise you, it will be fast,' " Shick said.
After Smith put Holiday in the truck and hid her body under a tree, his vehicle got stuck, Shick said.
Defense attorney L. Clark Donaldson said that during an ongoing dispute, Holiday and other family members had repeatedly gone on land that Smith's wife had inherited next to their property. He said Holiday's husband had built a sweat lodge on Smith's wife's land and that Smith took it down.
Smith was arrested a few miles northeast of Mexican Hat several days after Holiday died, San Juan County Sheriff Rick Eldredge has said. The sheriff said a Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter spotted Smith running in the desert, then flew deputies and police from the Navajo Nation to him.
Shick said Smith pleaded guilty in tribal court to criminal homicide. He was sentenced to one year and ordered into the custody of the Navajo Nation Department of Corrections.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Utah, double jeopardy is not a factor because the prosecutions are by separate sovereigns.
Twitter: @PamelaMansonSLC