5 shocking details about Nick Brady and Haile Kifer’s murders
Daniel Hoffman
Updated on February 26, 2026
On Thanksgiving Day of 2012, cousins Nick Brady and Haile Kifer were lethally shot by a retired person property holder, Byron Smith, whose house the two youngsters were endeavoring to break into. The youngsters were shot on different occasions and killed execution-style by the 64-year-old retired person, who thought that the casualties were associated with before robberies at his property and simply detailed the occurrence to specialists the following day.
Smith was seen as at fault for two includes of planned murder in April 2014 for arranging their killings and afterward more than once shooting them even subsequent to having killed the danger. He was condemned to life in jail without the chance of parole.
Nick Brady and Haile Kifer’s killings are planned to highlight on Oxygen’s Dateline: Mysteries Uncovered on Thursday, May 11, at 8:00 pm ET, in an episode named 12 Minutes on Elm Road. The summary peruses:
“Cousins Nick Brady and Haile Kifer were closest companions; to their family, they seemed like regular teens; ends up, the cousins had a mysterious that prompted tragedy.”Nick Brady and Haile Kifer’s killings: Five fast realities to be familiar with the high schooler cousins’ shooting deaths1) Nick Brady and Haile Kifer were discovered on reconnaissance examining Byron Smith’s property
As indicated by observation film, high schooler cousins 17-year-old Brady and 18-year-old Kifer were discovered on reconnaissance filtering Smith’s property before their endeavor to break into his home. Smith himself uncovered that while visiting his neighbors prior that day, he saw Kifer driving past his home. He even expressed that at that point, he accepted she was behind the robberies which had occurred on his property.
According to Byron Smith’s variant of the occasions, he was ready to pounce for Nick Brady and Haile Kifer, who he thought were behind the prior robberies that occurred on his property subsequent to having recognized the last option driving by his home. He guaranteed he originally moved his truck to an alternate spot to cause it to appear as though no one was home and afterward proceeded to sit on a seat in his cellar with two guns, according to NBC News. He likewise turned on a recording gadget.
Brady was quick to enter the storm cellar and furthermore the first to die. Smith shot the 17-year-old two times while he was at the highest point of the steps and a third one, execution-style in the head, as he tumbled to the ground. Kifer who entered the cellar minutes after the fact was likewise taken shots at the highest point of the steps after which the shooter’s rifle stuck. He then shot her in the face with a .22 type gun.
3) The adolescents had been engaged with various robberies preceding their demises
Byron Smith just educated specialists about the occurrence daily in the wake of Thanksgiving, guaranteeing that he would have rather not irritated them on a vacation. He supposedly kept Nick Brady and Haile Kifer’s bodies in the wardrobe.
Reports express that the high schooler cousins had been engaged with several robberies before the shooting episode and a post-mortem uncovered that Kifer had drugs in her framework at the hour of her passing. Besides, Brady’s sister informed specialists that he took drugs from her home on August 28. Extra proof found in the 17-year-old’s vehicle recommended that he was engaged with a thievery that occurred at a resigned educator’s home the prior night Thanksgiving.
Brady was likewise seen driving a red Mitsubishi Cover which was found nearby to the crime location. A similar vehicle was additionally connected to a home intrusion at Richard L. Johnson’s home.
At Smith’s 2014 preliminary, examiners guaranteed that the retired person expected to kill the teens and that the arrangement was gotten under way since he spotted Haile Kifer driving by his home prior that day. He purportedly held up in his cellar – outfitted – and, surprisingly, recorded the episode on a gadget deliberately set for that reason.
The accounts, which were subsequently played in court, depicted the shootings exhaustively as Smith was heard annoying and provoking the casualties as he shot them even after they were gravely harmed.
Byron Smith was viewed as at legitimate fault for two includes of first-degree murder in the shooting passings of adolescent cousins Nick Brady and Haile Kifer. The case prodded conversation around the palace teaching, which grants land owners to utilize deadly power to guard their properties.
The indictment, notwithstanding, guaranteed that Smith utilized unnecessary power subsequent to killing the risk and that his lead and a tape he made while the shootings were going on demonstrated deliberation. He was sentenced and condemned to life in jail without the chance of parole after the jury dismissed his self-protection guarantee.