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Murder suspect has long history of violent crime By MARK FREEMAN William Henry Allen Jr. was already a convicted arsonist, car thief and teenage thug when he allegedly beat and strangled a 17-year-old Medford girl beneath the high school stadium bleachers in a crime that rocked the town in the spring of 1981. Police, court and corrections records show that Allen, now 36, was in and out of juvenile detention facilities and free on parole just two months before he allegedly murdered Evelyn Marie Smith on April 26, 1981. But investigators didn't finger Allen as a potential murder suspect until he used a razor to kidnap and rob another teenage girl less than five weeks after the murder, police said Thursday. "He became a person of interest to us after that incident," said Medford police Lt. Tim George. Allen was tried as an adult and convicted on kidnapping and robbery charges Sept. 1, 1981, then served six years of his 20-year prison sentence before his release in June 1987, records show. Smith's murder remained unsolved as Allen eventually moved to the San Francisco Bay area - where he became a steelworker and married man known to friends as "Billy." But new, sophisticated DNA testing allegedly linked Smith's murder to Allen, who was indicted secretly April 2 in Medford. Allen's alleged past caught up with him abruptly when he was arrested in California on a murder warrant April 26, the 20th anniversary of Smith's violent death in a Spiegelberg Stadium tunnel on the South Medford High School campus. "I remember the frustration, particularly that the police had, to charge the person who did it," said Justin Smith, Jackson County's district attorney at the time of Smith's murder. "(Police) had a person they were really trying to zero in on, but they just couldn't put it together. "DNA testing," he said, "is a wonderful thing." Allen is scheduled to appear today in a Bay area courtroom, where he will either fight or agree to extradition to Oregon to face the murder charge. If he waives his extradition rights, Allen could be returned to Medford early next week for arraignment, police said. If Allen fights it, then Jackson County prosecutors will seek to force his return in an extradition case officials here say they would easily win. "As soon as he's available, we'll come get him," said George, whose detectives last fall broke open the old murder case against their longtime suspect. Smith's nude body, covered with cuts and abrasions, was found beneath the stadium grandstand and an autopsy determined that she had been strangled, possibly with some type of rigid object. The murder shocked Medford, which at that time was still a relatively small timber town hit hard by an economic depression but still cozy enough that teenagers regularly hung out fear-free at night and residents left their homes and cars unlocked. Friends described Smith as a lively, free-spirited teen who had dropped out of alternative school a year before her death. "She was a very kind person who loved to dance, loved music," said Mike McDermott, of Medford. "She was very dear to me." McDermott said he does not recall knowing Allen, who by then was already known to police and juvenile authorities as a troublemaker. In August 1979, Allen was not yet 15 years old when he was convicted as a juvenile on charges of second-degree arson and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, according to juvenile court records once kept by the state Children's Services Division, which oversaw juvenile parolees back then. He was sent to the MacLaren School for Boys, a secure detention facility in Woodburn that held the state's worst juvenile offenders. Allen was paroled to CSD supervision in April 1980, but returned to MacLaren the following September amid allegations of assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, records show. Allen was then paroled again to Jackson County on Feb. 20, 1981 - almost two months before Smith's murder. On May 23, Allen allegedly got in the car of a 16-year-old girl, then held a razor between her legs as he ordered her to drive around Medford, according to police reports on the crime. The girl was able to struggle free and escape, but Allen kept the car and fled, the reports state. Allen was arrested the next day in Redding, Calif., then returned to Medford, where he was convicted in adult court and sent to prison, records show. Having essentially a stranger-to-stranger crime like that in Medford piqued the interest of detectives working Smith's murder investigation, George said. After his June 20, 1987 prison release, Allen eventually moved to the Oakland suburb of Pittsburg where Medford police, armed with a warrant, drew a sample of Allen's blood for DNA testing in 1992. Tests done at that time did not link Allen to the crime, police said. But the more sophisticated DNA testing done last November on that same blood allegedly linked Allen to the murder. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.