On Tuesday afternoon, November 8, 2016, two boys riding bicycles in a wooded area off Pond Street in Easton, Massachusetts, found a man about 25 yards into the woods, unconscious and bleeding from a gunshot wound. The victim was identified as 35-year-old Daniel Gerald Smith, a former Easton resident who had been living in Florida. He was taken to a local hospital, then airlifted to a Boston hospital, where he remained in critical condition and died on November 11.

Investigators quickly ruled Smith’s death a homicide and identified 47-year-old Michael Arthur Noguera, also from Florida, as a suspect. Authorities say Smith and Noguera were traveling companions who had driven from Florida to Massachusetts together after about five weeks on the road. A dispute over money is believed to have been the motive. The men had checked into a Brockton hotel the day before the shooting and had been stopped by Brockton police that night with Smith driving a red 2016 Mazda and Noguera in the passenger seat.

After the shooting, Noguera fled the state in Smith’s car and an intensive search followed; he was arrested in a trailer in Conway, South Carolina, on November 12 and the Mazda was recovered from a motel parking lot in North Carolina. Did anyone in the area see Smith or that red Mazda in the days leading up to November 8?