John Till Burnite, a White man living near Durango in La Plata County, Colorado, was fatally shot outside his home on October 6, 1975. He had just returned and was still seated in the front seat of his pickup truck in the driveway when someone shot him.

Earlier in 1975 Burnite had been a witness in a civil dispute over a tractor bought from Carmack Motors. He initially said he accompanied George A. Smith when Smith paid for the tractor but later recanted that statement during a preliminary hearing tied to allegations of perjury, conspiracy to commit perjury, and witness tampering. Burnite died before Smith’s criminal trial; the Colorado Supreme Court later ordered a new trial because admitting Burnite’s prior testimony had violated confrontation rights, and the court noted it was not addressing a situation where a defendant caused a witness to become unavailable.

Investigators continued to review the 1975 killing for decades; the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office presented the case to Colorado’s Cold Case Review Team in August 2021. Who fired the fatal shot and why remain unclear. Did anyone in the Durango area at the time have information that could shed light on Burnite’s death?