Man Sentenced for 1994 Cold Case Murder for Studio City Killing

A man who was serving a state prison sentence in Mississippi when he was linked to the man and the attempted murder of the victim's wife during an early morning burglary was sentenced today to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Brandolino imposed the life term on Kevin Bernard Smith Jr., 36, who was convicted May 14 of first-degree murder for the Jan. 26, 1994, shooting death of 73-year-old Rupert "Rudy" Thompson, and the attempted murder of Thompson's wife.

Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegations that Thompson was murdered during the course of both a burglary and a robbery.

Smith -- armed with a .380-caliber handgun -- broke into the couple's home about 1 a.m., shot the wife in the chest and then shot her husband in the chest and struck him over the head with the gun more than a dozen times before ransacking the home and fleeing with jewelry and a typewriter.

Thompson crawled out of the house and screamed for help for his wife before he died on the front lawn.

The case went unsolved until 2010, when DNA recovered from two blood stains at the crime scene was matched to Smith through a state DNA database, according to the District Attorney's Office.

At the time, Smith was in a Mississippi prison on an unrelated drug sales conviction.