Todd Smith's name on the Journalist's Memorial at The Freedom Center.
Nov 9, 2002
By JIM SLOAN
jsloan@tampatrib.com
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Photo by: Photo provided by Scott Maclan Todd Smith's name on the Journalist's Memorial at The Freedom Center. |
TAMPA - It's been 13 years, almost to the day, since the killers quietly melted into the Peruvian jungle.
Only one of the seven men thought to have carried out the murder of Tampa Tribune reporter Todd Carper Smith had been caught.
And few expected, in a country rife with drug traffickers and corrupt politicians, that any of the others would be brought to justice.
But Sunday, in a stunning break in the case, Peruvian antiterrorism police captured Pedro Roberto Villacorta in the jungle north of Lima.
Authorities say he was not only involved in Smith's strangulation, he was the one who wielded the garrote.
``This guy is believed to be the murderer,'' said a U.S. State Department official close to the investigation.
``Todd was strangled, and this was the guy that allegedly did the strangling.''
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a break in a case more than a decade old is rare.
``The police here suffer from budget shortcomings, and the farther away it gets from the crime, unfortunately, the less interest there is in it,'' he said.
``We'll continue to do what we can to catch the others. But it's hard.''
Smith's tragic journey began Nov. 8, 1989, when the 28-year-old reporter landed in Lima, Peru's capital and largest city, on a working vacation to find out more about the Shining Path.
The Marxist guerrillas controlled the Upper Huallaga Valley, a lush forest that supplied nearly half the world's raw coca leaf.
A battleground between drug traffickers and U.S. drug agents, the valley was considered one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists.
Smith knew that.
But he may not have known that drug traffickers were watching his every move - and worrying.
When they saw him visit a recently completed military base, the center of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, they pegged him as an American drug agent, investigators said.
Authorities believe three traffickers issued an assassination order, and four Shining Path guerrillas carried it out.
The Witness Who Escaped
As Smith waited in line to board a charter plane out of the jungle, an assassination team grabbed him and took him to a small cabin on the outskirts of Uchiza, a notorious drug town described as the ``Dodge City'' of Upper Huallaga Valley.
They also abducted a Peruvian merchant who had been seen talking to Smith.
The man later said that he had tried to sell the American an alligator.
The two were taken to a small cabin, where Smith was tortured for up to three days.
When his assassins looked for a rope to strangle him, one of them took the rope tying the merchant's hands, not realizing in the dark that his feet were free.
The merchant escaped.
The morning of Nov. 21, Smith's body was found in an Uchiza park, a sign around his neck denouncing him as a spy.
A leading Peruvian journalist tersely summed Smith's fate at the time: ``Because he was young and an outsider, he probably ignored or couldn't read some very clear or not-so-clear signs in the background that he was staying there too long,'' he said.
``What I think happened is that Todd Smith overstayed his welcome,'' he said.
Long Wait For Justice
Fast-forward four years.
The merchant who saw Smith killed, placed under an FBI protection program, helps bring one of his killers, Shining Path guerrilla Jose Antonio Manrique Vega, to court.
Vega admitted only that he ``slapped'' Smith a few times.
But the jury convicts him, and a hooded judge in a secret court inside Lima's maximum security Canto Grande prison hands down a 30-year prison sentence.
Then, nothing. Nine years pass. No arrests. Not even any leaks of any promising leads.
Until Sunday, and Villacorta.
The State Department investigator said Villacorta was caught with the help of the same merchant who testified against Vega.
Like others, Smith's father, Robert, a Tallahassee lawyer and retired judge, had nearly given up hope that any other of his son's assassins would see justice.
``I'm just very happy to learn they are keeping after it,'' he said. ``It certainly is satisfying to know that they are still looking into it after all these years.''
In a country like Peru, where murder is commonplace and police resources are few, the arrest is nothing short of amazing, said one journalist who has worked in the country.
``I think it's extremely rare that a case receives this kind of attention over such a long period of time,'' said Philip Bennett, assistant managing editor for foreign news at The Washington Post. ``The cold case list in Peru is almost endless.''
Peru has one of the weakest criminal justice systems in the world but still manages occasionally to break such big cases, he said.
``It was a horrible case from the start, and it stayed alive in people's minds,'' he said.
Tim Collie, a former Tampa Tribune reporter who worked on the story of Smith's death in 1989, was also stunned by the latest arrest.
``I thought it would all fall by the wayside,'' said Collie, now a reporter with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper in Fort Lauderdale.
Collie, who traveled to Peru with then-Executive Editor Doyle Harvill to retrieve Smith's body, speculated that investigators for the American Embassy in Lima ``see this as a not-so- cold case and they are continuing to investigate.''
U.S. State Department spokesman Stuart Patt said the arrest is a testimonial to the department's diplomatic security officers.
``They would not let the case drop,'' Patt said. ``They would not let the case go away.''
A Little Less Deadly Place
The Shining Path's stranglehold on Peru loosened after the 1992 arrest of its founder, Abimael Guzman. It's membership quickly dwindled.
``Colombia, Mexico and Brazil are the toughest places right now to be a journalist,'' said Ricardo Trotti of the Miami-based Inter American Press Association, which monitors threats to journalists around the world.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit research organization based in New York, reports that 298 journalists were slain in the line of duty around the world between 1992 and 2001, with another 62 dying while covering combat.
The group says that there have been arrests and prosecutions in just 20 of those killings.
One of Smith's closest friends, however, greeted news of Villacorta's arrest with mixed emotions.
``It's nice to see it happen, but none of this really helps or brings him back, quite honestly,'' said Wayne Garcia, who worked with Smith at the Tribune before leaving to become a political consultant.
Every year, the Thanksgiving season brings back memories of his friend, Garcia said. ``It's a very bittersweet time.''
``What's important is not whether the Peruvian justice system works or not,'' he added. ``What's important is the small picture: that Todd died doing something important that he really loved doing, writing about terrorism long before it was fashionable.
``There are still people like Todd who put themselves in harm's way to get vital information to the world,'' he said.
Todd Smith's legacy lives on through the Todd Smith Fellowship in international journalism at his alma mater, Washington and Lee University. The award encourages journalism students to cover foreign affairs. To contribute or get information, write the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications, Washington and Lee University, Lexington VA 24450-0303.
Reporter Jim Sloan can be reached at (813) 259-7691.