Yvette Smith

Yvette Smith, 47, a mother of two who had survived cancer, was shot twice and killed by Bastrop County, Texas Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Willis on February 16, 2014, moments after she opened the front door of her Camp Swift home. Smith had called 911 herself to report her boyfriend and his son fighting over a shotgun; by the time deputies arrived, she had already persuaded them to unload the gun and put it away. A dispatcher nonetheless told Willis someone inside had a gun, and he retrieved an AR-15 from his patrol car. Dashcam video showed no deputy gave any command before Willis fired the moment Smith appeared in the doorway; she was unarmed. Willis was charged with murder and fired from the department. His first trial ended in a hung jury deadlocked 8-4 toward conviction; at his retrial, Willis waived a jury and was acquitted by a judge in April 2016. No one has ever been convicted in Smith's death.

Camp Swift, TX · Bastrop County

• 2014: 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.

• The 911 call, the dispatch information relayed to Willis, and the shooting, per Bastrop County Sheriff's Office dashcam footage and testimony from both criminal trials.
• Smith herself called 911 to report a domestic disturbance and had defused it by convincing her boyfriend's son to unload the shotgun and set it on a table before deputies arrived.
• Dashcam video showed Willis retrieved an AR-15-style rifle from his patrol vehicle and fired twice within roughly 3.5 seconds of Smith opening the front door, without any deputy having given a verbal command.
• The Bastrop County Sheriff's Office initially stated publicly that Smith had been “displaying a firearm” and ignored commands; officials later acknowledged she was unarmed and that no commands were given before the shooting.
• Willis was indicted for murder and fired from the sheriff's office in June 2014.
• His first trial in September 2015 ended in a mistrial after the jury deliberated nearly 20 hours over three days and remained deadlocked 8-4 in favor of conviction.
• At his 2016 retrial, Willis waived his right to a jury; Visiting Judge Albert McCaig Jr. found him not guilty of murder in April 2016, stating the domestic dispute between Smith's boyfriend and his son was the true cause of the tragedy.
• Bastrop County separately settled a wrongful death and negligent-hiring lawsuit with Smith's family for $1.2 million in 2015, the largest settlement in the county's history at the time.

• Whether Willis's belief that Smith might be armed, based solely on outdated dispatch information, was objectively reasonable given the roughly 3.5-second window before he fired was the central legal question and was resolved only by a single judge's ruling after a jury had already deadlocked in the opposite direction.
• Why Willis retrieved a rifle rather than waiting for further information or attempting verbal contact, given deputies were already on scene and no immediate threat had been confirmed, has not been fully explained beyond the defense's self-defense argument.
• Why the sheriff's office's initial public account — that Smith was armed and had ignored commands — differed so completely from what the department's own dashcam footage later showed has not been addressed in any official public accounting.

• Austin American-Statesman — “Daniel Willis found not guilty in shooting death of unarmed woman”
• KXAN — “Fired deputy Daniel Willis found not guilty of murder”
• Fox 7 Austin — “Bastrop Co. Fmr. Deputy Willis found not guilty”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs