Frank Allen arrived at his suburban Las Vegas home in the early morning hours of Saturday, October 6, 1990, expecting to have the residence to himself. His tenant, Joe Smith had told him he was taking his family on a weekend vacation. Frank had had a hectic week and was looking forward to a little down time; his weekend, instead, was about to become hellish.

Joe Smith was lurking in the home. Instead of taking his family on vacation, he had brutally taken their lives . . . and he would soon attempt to do the same to Frank Allen.

Joe Smith

Los Angeles businessman Frank Allen made frequent trips to Las Vegas where he had a home in The Fountains, an upscale gate community in the Green Valley section of Henderson, ten miles south of Sin City.

Frank rented his home to fifty-year-old Joe Smith and his forty-seven-year-old wife, Judith, maintaining a room for himself when he traveled to Nevada. Smith had made a down payment on purchasing the home.

Frank Allen

Also living at the home were Judith’s two daughters from a previous marriage, twenty-year-old Wendy Cox and twelve-year-old Kristy Cox.

      Joe and Judith Smith                    Wendy Cox                                 Kristy Cox

As he was in his upstairs bedroom changing clothes after returning home on October 6, 1990, Frank thought he heard a noise coming from the game room down the hallway.

After Frank entered the room, Smith emerged from the closet wielding what Frank thought was a hammer. Smith attempted to strike his landlord, but Frank was able to grab his arm before the weapon hit him. The men fought for several seconds before Frank was able to fend off Smith.

Frank, clad only in his underwear and a t-shirt, ran downstairs; Smith chased after him. Remembering he had double-locked the front door and knowing he did not have time to use his keys to unlock it, Frank ran through the glass door and was able to escape and summon help.

Frank Is Attacked

Police arrived within minutes, at 2:30 a.m. They entered cautiously, believing Smith could still be inside. In a downstairs bedroom, they initially believed they had found him hiding under a blanket. They ordered him up but received no response. After pulling off the blanket, they made a grizzly discovery.

Beneath the blanket was Kristy’s blood-soaked body. Wendy, engaged to be married the following month, lay lifeless in the adjacent bedroom. The carnage concluded in the upstairs master bedroom, where Judith’s body lay beneath the bed covers.

All three victims had been strangled and bludgeoned multiple times. Wendy had fought valiantly for her life, having sustained thirty-two defensive wounds to her hands and face. Judith and Kristy appeared to have been killed in their sleep, as neither showed any defensive wounds. Autopsies determined the women had been dead for eighteen hours.

Frank Allen was right regarding the weapon he believed Smith used to attack him; the women were determined to have been killed with a claw hammer.

Despite the prompt arrival of police, Joe Smith had fled and could not be located.

Strangled and Bludgeoned

Smith had previously served time in prison for grand theft and had a history as a con man; he was about to try to con his way out of the ultimate crime.

Between 4:30-5:00 a.m., approximately two to two-and-a-half hours after the bodies were discovered, Smith telephoned Judith’s daughter-in-law, Yolanda Cook, telling her of the murders but denying responsibility. He claimed he had killed one of the men responsible, and that he knew who the other killers were and that he was going to kill them as well.

Responding officers to the home found two handwritten notes in briefcases telling similar stories. They were confirmed to have been written by Smith.

Smith said Frank Allen was one of the men who had taken part in the murders because he was angry at him over money Smith owed him. Investigators found no validity to the claims and believed the call was an effort to garner sympathy from Judith’s family.

The Killer Flees

Smith’s motive is for the brutal triple murder was unclear.

To all who knew them, Joe and Judith appeared to have a happy marriage and no one had witnessed any instances of abuse, either physical or verbal. In addition, Smith appeared to have a great relationship with both of his stepdaughters.

The only possible hint of any tension was that Smith had expressed angst over the financial costs of purchasing the new home and of Wendy’s upcoming wedding. He had also been frustrated by not being named the beneficiary in Judith’s will and because she did not have life insurance policies on her daughters.

The motive, however, was not important at the moment. Joe Smith had committed three gruesome murders and was still at large. After two credible sightings of the fugitive were reported in Arizona, police determined he was probably headed farther west, where he had family. National exposure proved them correct.

Motive Unclear

Minutes after Joe Smith was featured on Unsolved Mysteries on January 16, 1991, a viewer told authorities the fugitive was living in a motel in the Watts area of Los Angeles. Smith, however, had also seen the broadcast and fled again before he could be apprehended.

Police knew Smith was close to his brother, Harold, who lived near Los Angeles. After five days of surveilling Harold, police determined his fugitive brother was staying under an assumed name at the Dream Motel in Inglewood.

Tracked to Los Angeles

Joe Smith was arrested without incident. Inside his motel room, authorities found several credit and identification cards indicating he was in the process of creating a new identity.

At his trial, Smith changed his story from the one he had told his sister-in-law, but he still adamantly denied slaughtering his family. He claimed he had attacked Frank Allen because he believed he was working for the real killers of his family: Columbian drug dealers. The jury snickered at the outrageous story.

Joe Smith was convicted of murdering his wife and two stepdaughters. He was sentenced to life in prison for murdering Judith and to death for killing Wendy and Kristy. He was also given another forty-year sentence for the attempted murder of Frank Allen.

Harold Smith was arrested for aiding his fugitive brother, but I could not find what punishment he received.

Captured

In 1998, the Nevada Supreme Court, in an odd ruling, ordered Smith’s sentence for Kristy’s murder be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The state high court ruled the jury instruction on depravity of mind failed to include the required elements of torture or mutilation for Kristy’s murder. The court, however, did not make the same ruling for Wendy’s murder and Smith’s death sentence for her slaying still stands.

Over thirty years after slaughtering his family to death, Joe Smith remains on death row. In July 2021, he joined a lawsuit against Nevada prison officials over their choice to use a new lethal injection cocktail in future executions.

Still on Death Row

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/119862391/judith-ruth-smith#

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/119861484/wendy-jean-cox#

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/119862127/kristy-gaye-cox#

 

SOURCES:

• Las Vegas Sun
• Los Angeles Times
• Unsolved Mysteries

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/119862127/kristy-gaye-cox