Suspect arraigned in 23-year-old murder case

Scott Sonner

Monday, June 5, 2000 | 12:55 p.m.

RENO, Nev. - A casino poker dealer was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge Monday after DNA testing tied him to the killing of a young girl 23 years ago.

Stephen Robert Smith, 57, Sparks, was ordered held without bail in the 1977 death of Lisa Marie Bonham of Martinez, Calif.

The 6-year-old was snatched from a small Reno amusement park just a year after Smith was paroled from a life sentence for child molestation.

Reno Justice Court Judge Fidel Salcedo set a preliminary hearing for June 19 during the video arraignment of Smith, who remained in custody at Washoe County Jail.

Forensic investigators say they matched Smith's DNA to semen on Lisa's shirt and sock.

A woman who said she worked in the Reno Police Department at the time of the young girl's death wept as Smith appeared on a television screen while the judge read the charges.

"It's been a long wait," said the woman, who declined to give her name but said she became friends with the victim's family.

"The thing that bothers me is that he looks so unconcerned up there," the woman said.

Dressed in a blue prison jump suit, the gray-haired Smith crossed his leg and held court papers in his hand as he sat on a bench awaiting his arraignment.

Under questioning from the judge, Smith said he had hired Reno attorney John Ohlson as his lawyer. He confirmed he had been given a copy of the criminal complaint and that he understood it. But he had little else to say.

The judge asked if he understood he was being held without bail and Smith answered, "Yes sir."

The young girl was visiting relatives in Reno when she was abducted from Idlewild Park on Sept. 3, 1977. She disappeared after getting a dollar from her mother to ride the park's roller coaster.

Her clothing was found in a trash can along Interstate 80 west of Reno. Hikers found her remains about two months later in the mountains west of Reno.

Smith was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the 1969 molestation of two Sparks girls and the attempted assault of a 12-year-old Reno girl.

He had been living in the Reno area since he was paroled in 1976. A former national guardsman, he worked at the Peppermill Hotel-Casino since 1994.