Ed Smith

Ed Smith was fatally shot in the chest in the front yard of his own home in State Line on April 27, 1958, by his neighbor, Lawrence David Clark. Smith's wife, Daisy Bell Smith, witnessed the shooting. The NAACP's Medgar Evers personally urged prosecution. Clark was arrested, and at a preliminary hearing was released on a $5,000 bond pending a grand jury hearing. Two weeks later, a local grand jury declined to indict him. According to contemporaneous news reports, Clark later bragged openly about the shooting. He died in 1992, decades before the DOJ formally closed the file in 2009.

State Line, MS · Wayne County

• 1958: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• Victim identity and the April 27, 1958 date and circumstances, per the DOJ's public case file and PBS FRONTLINE's “Un(re)solved” case summary.
• Lawrence David Clark was arrested and released on bond, but a grand jury declined to indict him two weeks later; contemporaneous reports say he later bragged about the killing, per the same sources.

• No one was ever convicted in Smith's death.
• The specific underlying dispute between Smith and Clark, as neighbors, was never fully documented in the surviving record.

• PBS FRONTLINE Un(re)solved — case summary
• U.S. Department of Justice — Notice to Close File
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs