🎬💔 The death of Hollywood legend Robert Redford has re-ignited a haunting family tragedy that’s been unsolved for more than four decades.

In 1983, Redford’s daughter Shauna lost her boyfriend, Sid Wells — a promising college student — when he was found shot in the back of the head inside his Colorado apartment.
The prime suspect vanished in 1986… and was never seen again.

Now, just days after Redford’s passing, the FBI has relaunched the manhunt, offering a $10,000 reward and vowing to bring Wells’ killer to justice at last.
Sources say Redford never stopped asking about the case — even calling the district attorney himself years later.

👉 Dive into the shocking twists, heartbreak, and Hollywood intrigue behind the murder that still haunts the Redford family — and the mysterious fugitive who’s been running from justice for 40 years.

When the world said goodbye to Robert Redford — the golden-haired face of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the quiet conscience of Hollywood — obituaries spoke of his artistry, his activism, his grace.
But among those tributes, a darker story resurfaced.

Because behind Redford’s immaculate career lay a wound that never healed: the unsolved 1983 murder of his daughter Shauna’s boyfriend, Sid Wells, a killing that ripped through the Redford family and haunted the actor for the rest of his life.

Now, with Redford gone, that tragedy has flared back to life.
The FBI has reopened the file.
A fugitive long thought forgotten is suddenly the target of a nationwide hunt.
And the question echoing through Hollywood and Boulder alike is chillingly simple:

Who killed Sid Wells — and why has he never been found?

“A GOLDEN COUPLE IN A COLLEGE TOWN”

In 1983, twenty-something Shauna Redford was studying art at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Her boyfriend, Sid Wells, was tall, athletic, charming — the kind of guy who could light up a lecture hall. Friends called them “the perfect couple”: she, the daughter of Hollywood royalty; he, the small-town boy with a poet’s heart.

They lived in a quiet student apartment near campus. Shauna painted. Sid played guitar.
Then, one August afternoon, everything shattered.

“A SINGLE SHOT”

On August 1, 1983, Boulder police received a 911 call from the Spanish Towers complex.
Inside one of the units, officers found Sid Wells slumped on the floor, a single gunshot wound to the back of the head.
His wallet was untouched. No forced entry. No sign of robbery.
The crime scene screamed personal.

Shauna was out of town that day.
When she heard, she collapsed. Her father — filming The Natural in Buffalo — dropped everything and flew straight to Colorado.
Witnesses remember him at the funeral, stoic, holding his daughter close, eyes hollow.

Hollywood’s leading man had stepped into a nightmare no script could fix.

“THE ROOMMATE”

Investigators quickly focused on Sid’s roommate, Thayne Alan Smika, 24, a fellow student who shared the apartment.
Smika told police he had no idea what happened. But detectives noticed inconsistencies — his timeline shifted, his story changed.
Ballistics linked the bullet to a 12-gauge shotgun owned by Smika’s family.

He was arrested but never charged.
Boulder County’s district attorney at the time claimed there wasn’t enough evidence to take the case to trial.

Then, in 1986, Thayne Smika disappeared.
He left Colorado, abandoned his car in another state, and seemingly melted into the earth.

The case went cold.
Shauna withdrew from public life.
Redford stopped talking about it — but those close to him say the pain “never left his eyes.”

“THE COLD CASE FILES OPEN AGAIN”

By 2009, a new district attorney, Stan Garnett, decided to revisit the forgotten murder. Advances in DNA testing had revolutionized cold-case investigations.
Detectives reopened boxes of evidence sealed since the Reagan era — photos, fibers, and that single spent shell.

Redford, by then in his 70s, was quietly following every update.
When Garnett issued a new arrest warrant in 2010 for Thayne Smika — still missing after nearly 25 years — Redford personally called the DA’s office to thank him.

“Robert Redford’s on the line,” Garnett recalled to Colorado’s KUSA-TV.
“He just said, ‘Thank you for not giving up on Sid.’”

“THE MANHUNT RENEWED”

For years, the trail ran cold again. Rumors placed Smika in Oregon… Alaska… even South America.
The FBI profiled him as a man who could blend easily into remote communities — quiet, self-sufficient, intelligent.
But nothing concrete emerged.

Then, the day after Redford’s death in 2025, the FBI posted a nationwide bulletin:

Wanted — Thayne Alan Smika, charged in the 1983 murder of Sid Wells.
Reward: $10,000 for information leading to his capture. Bail set at $5 million.

The timing was eerie.
One life ending, another manhunt beginning — as if justice itself had been waiting for Redford’s final curtain.

Friends say Redford never wanted revenge — just closure for his daughter.
He believed in the slow, stubborn pursuit of truth.

For Shauna, now in her 60s, the renewed investigation has reopened old wounds. Yet it also offers hope — that her father’s legacy might finally bring peace to the ghost that shadowed their family.

Detectives are re-interviewing witnesses, analyzing aged evidence with 21st-century tools, and urging the public to look closely at old photos of Smika. Somewhere, they believe, he’s still alive — perhaps living under another name, perhaps reading these headlines.

And as the FBI’s search gains traction, the case has transformed from a forgotten college murder into a symbol of endurance — a reminder that even Hollywood icons carry private tragedies, and that some stories refuse to fade when the credits roll.

Robert Redford built a career on moral complexity — on characters who fought for justice when no one else would.
In death, that same spirit now drives a manhunt decades in the making.

Because sometimes, the final act of a Hollywood hero isn’t on screen — it’s in the pursuit of a truth that outlives him.

Robert Redford’s Death Triggers FBI Hunt for Fugitive in 1983 Murder of Daughter’s Boyfriend — Inside the Case That Haunted Him for Life