Montgomery County Sheriff's Deputy James Hall was shot and killed in October 1971 while working a security job.Montgomery County PD
The trial of a 72-year-old man charged with murder in the 1971 killing of a Maryland sheriff’s deputy ended in a mistrial Wednesday, the latest turn in a case that had gone dormant until detectives recently revisited the investigation.
A jury in Montgomery County began deliberating Friday after a week-long trial that turned on whether Larry David Smith was recently coaxed into admitting to the crime. Jurors informed Circuit Judge Cheryl A. McCally on Wednesday afternoon that they had reached an impasse and couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict.
Smith remains held in the Montgomery County jail on no bond. McCally scheduled a new trial date, with jury selection set to begin June 17, according to attorneys in the case, the Washington Post reports.
“We are absolutely, 100 percent going to retry this case,” Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said after court on Wednesday.
The trial took jurors back to Oct. 23, 1971, when James Hall was working a night security detail outside the Manor Country Club. He came upon at least two men who had just broken into a nearby home, police say, and one of them shot him in the head. Hall died three days later.
Montgomery County Cold Case detectives reopened the case in 2021. They found an old reel-to-reel recording of an interview in case files, had it digitally converted by the FBI, and heard the voice of Smith, which in their minds put him at the scene of the crime. They tracked him down in Upstate New York, and persuaded him to sit down for a nearly four-hour interview on Sept. 1, 2022.
