The first of two trials is underway in the case of 32-year-old Ikeie Smith.
He’s charged with 9 counts of criminal sexual conduct and home invasions.
These terrifying cases went unsolved for years, haunting the community until police pooled their resources and got a major break.
Metro Detroit police knew they had a menace targeting vulnerable women in the western suburbs. They tallied up 35 unsolved home invasions and rapes dating back to 2011.
The evidence would eventually lead them to Ikeie smith.
“This type of incident strikes terror in a bedroom community like Garden City,” say Garden City Police Chief Robert Muery.
Days, weeks and months would pass, and the victims kept coming forward.
Attacks in 8 communities all started to show a similar MO that helped investigators:
- The attacks were in the middle of the night
- Entry into homes was through an unlocked window or door
- Women were sleeping alone
- They were visible from the outside
- The streets were not well lit
- And shrubs would block front windows.
- A man may have just left the house
- The attacker smelled of stale cigarettes and alcohol.
- The victim, the home likely stalked before being picked at random.
“I wake up in the middle of the night, you hear a noise, you look down the hallway and you wonder, is someone in my house?” is what one victim told us.
In 2015, local police, state police and the FBI would form a taskforce. DNA evidence from the rapes did not match anyone in the database.
“This taskforce had to sustain for nearly a year without a break in the case,” says Chief Muery.
Then they got it: this defining moment in the case, a woman in Livonia knew about a lurking serial rapist from news reports, called police and turned over home video of a man casing her house in the middle of the night.
She looked back at the video, only after noticing a minor detail in her back yard. It is as simple as this.
“Her gate was slightly ajar,” says Chief Muery. “Really a minor thing that I as a police officer, I would have ignored it.”
After it was broadcast on the news, a tip was called into Crime Stoppers. Ikeie smith was arrested, his DNA collected and immediately taken to the Michigan State Police lab in Lansing.
Not just a match, a huge relief.
“DNA matched 7 of us,” a victim told us.
Now that his cases have advanced to trial, his mother’s always by his side, supporting her son. She told me last week, why.
“My son is innocent and he knew these women,” says Janet Freeman. “That he had relationships with these women.”
But get this: as this case was set for trial, preliminary discussions about a possible plea deal were rejected by Smith. His defense attorney made sure he knew he was facing what amounts to a life sentence – 100 years.
The top of the mountain of evidence? That DNA evidence plus Smith’s own confession, which his mother heard about for the first time in court.
“The jury will use that to determine his guilt or innocence. I know it now. But I’m just going to leave it in god’s hands. That’s all I can do,” she told us after the hearing.
Smith remains in jail. If convicted police will tell the women to look up Ikeie Smith on the state offender website, every time they have a flashback and fear for their safety.
