Man Gets 2 Life Terms in Woman’s Slaying

Gregory Smith, the reputed drug dealer who gunned down a Sun Valley woman in 1989 and avoided Los Angeles police for seven years, was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday. He will be eligible for parole in 2023.

Smith, 40, shot Marie Thorne five times and Shanon Thames at least four times while the two sat in Thames’ late-model Mercedes-Benz on April 25, 1989. Thorne died of her wounds.

Thames, involved in a $40,000 drug dispute, told police the name of his attacker. Police said Smith “executed” Thorne because she was a witness to the shooting.

“The tragic irony of this case is that Shanon Thames and Greg Smith assumed the risk for what they were doing,” said Jeffery Ramseyer, a prosecutor with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. “And here’s a woman who just went with a guy to get some breakfast and she got caught in the middle.”

Police said Thames and Smith had organized a botched drug deal in Northern California a year before the slaying. While driving a white stretch limousine along Interstate 5 near Los Banos, California Highway Patrol officers stopped the car and confiscated $2.2 million in cocaine, several guns and $160,000 in cash.

Smith blamed Thames for the bust and on April 25, 1989, Smith tried to collect his debt.

Authorities said the men had a tense verbal exchange at a nightclub, Carlos ‘n’ Charlie’s. They said Smith demanded $40,000 from Thames, who denied he owed any money.

Soon after, Thames and Thorne left the restaurant and stopped at a gas station on Crescenta Heights Boulevard. Authorities said Smith drove up in his late-model BMW, then walked up to the passenger side of Thames’ car, said a few words and opened fire. Thames told police he had no warning. Police found 11 bullet casings inside and around Thames’ car.

Smith’s criminal record began in his teens and police say he ran at least one crack house during the late 1980s. Court papers show 17 arrests between 1972 and 1988--from suspicion of robbery to alleged concealment of firearms. After the shooting, however, Smith apparently became more careful. In 1996 he was arrested in Columbus, Ohio, under a false name, but was released before authorities there realized his true identity.

But Smith’s luck ran out in 1996, when he was again arrested by Riverside County sheriff’s deputies and convicted on a drug-possession charge. Within two days of his arrest, Smith’s fingerprints were matched with his real name.

In September, Smith was convicted of first-degree murder in the slaying of Marie Thorne and the “attempted willful and deliberate murder” of Shanon Thames.