Man sentenced to 20 years in prison for 1994 Gary murder

A former Kentucky man was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison under a plea deal in connection with a murder in a cold 1994 Gary case.

Gerald L. Smith, now 62, formerly of Madisonville, Ky., pleaded guilty April 30 to Class A rape in the June 17, 1994, death of 69-year-old Gloria Hansell.

No family spoke in court.

Deputy Prosecutor Arturo Balcazar said Hansell was attacked in her own home. Court records show Smith had dated one of Hansell's daughters decades earlier and was back in town.

Defense lawyer Angela Jones said Smith's health was now “poor” and this would be “probably a life sentence”. He was remorseful and was on drugs when it happened, she said.

“I’m sorry for what I did,” Smith said in brief comments.

Judge Natalie Bokota accepted the plea deal, noting that it happened thirty years ago, that he had no criminal history since then and that he was “very young” at the time.

Smith was arrested in October 2022 after a DNA analysis.

Hansell was a widow who lived alone at 3966 Buchanan St. and used a home oxygen machine due to poor health, a release states.

On June 17, 1994, Hansell was raped and found strangled with an electrical cord, according to Post-Tribune archives.

A witness told police that Smith, who was 32 at the time of the incident, offered to cut grass for money, but she refused, according to the release.

Hansell had also told the witness that Smith attempted to kiss her neck inside her home, which was unwanted and made her uncomfortable, according to the release.

The break in the case occurred in 2020, when the FBI's Gang Response Investigation Team asked the Indiana State Police's Lowell Regional Laboratory to reexamine evidence collected in this case, the release states, and Smith was developed as a suspect from analysis of male DNA found in Hansell's sexual assault kit, which was recovered during his autopsy.

Smith was one of the first two suspects, according to court records. A witness said he dated one of Hansell's daughters when they were teenagers.

He “moved around a lot,” went to California, then came back to Gary about five years later, a few weeks before Hansell died.

[email protected]