SOQUEL — Local authorities have arrested a man in connection with a deadly shooting in Soquel that occurred more than a decade ago.
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office announced Monday that it had arrested and charged 63-year-old Colin Sean Tisdale with the murder of Jeffrey Stephensen Smith in 2012.
On Aug. 16 of that year, the Sheriff’s Office and medical personnel were dispatched to a home on Nicasio Way in Soquel after receiving reports that a man was suffering from a gunshot wound, according to a release from the law enforcement agency. After arriving at the scene, sheriff’s deputies found Smith, 28, alive, but critically injured. Though he was given immediate medical attention and care, Smith died at the scene of the incident shortly after first responders arrived.
Following a 13-year investigation and in consultation with the county District Attorney’s Office, sheriff’s detectives obtained an arrest warrant for Tisdale and took him into custody Dec. 5 in the Santa Cruz County Jail. According to the release, Tisdale was already housed in the jail for charges not related to the Sheriff’s Office murder investigation.
The county Sheriff’s Office also received assistance from the California Department of Justice and the county Sheriff’s Forensic Services Division throughout its yearslong investigation.
Tisdale appears to have been a suspect in Smith’s slaying for many years. Tisdale had been identified as a suspect at least as early as September 2012 because he was referred to as such in a Sentinel story about drug charges unrelated to the murder.
According to the Sentinel’s report, sheriff’s deputies stopped Tisdale on Highway 17 near Idylwild Drive in Santa Clara County eight hours after Smith’s murder. The BMW Tisdale and his father were in had a broken brake light and after Tisdale consented to a search, deputies found 200 methadone pills.
In August of 2013, Tisdale was sentenced to nine years in prison for the drug charges, according to the Sentinel’s report.
Smith attended Green Acres Elementary School and Aptos High School, according to a remembrance the Sentinel published shortly after his death. He was survived by his wife, Amanda Fox Sloan, and a 17-month-old daughter.
In November 2012, Sloan was jailed after she allegedly shot at law enforcement while leading Capitola police on a high-speed chase. Months later, Sloan was discovered dead in her Santa Cruz County jail cell of an apparent asphyxiation by hanging.
