The Region - News from July 1, 1986

A Fontana man showed no emotion as a San Bernardino jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in the kidnaping, molestation and ice-chest entombment of Melissa Wakefield, 10, nearly a year ago. Jurors also found Brian Keith Smith, 24, guilty of two special circumstances, but the prosecution asked for a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole rather than death. Superior Court Judge Duke D. Rouse set July 25 for sentencing. Smith admitted to sheriff’s deputies that he kidnaped the girl from behind her Fontana home, molested her at his girlfriend’s beauty shop, then wrapped her in a sleeping bag and stuffed her in the ice chest. Four days later, when he saw that she was dead, he buried her near the high desert community of Phelan.