It began as a quiet college romance — two young dreamers, both full of promise, both born into very different worlds.

Sydney “Sid” Wells was a journalism student at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Shauna Redford was an art major — and the daughter of legendary actor and filmmaker Robert Redford, a man who defined an era of Hollywood’s golden charm.

In 1980, they met at a Navy ROTC dance. Sid was the kind of boy mothers trusted and girls adored — polite, ambitious, with a movie-star smile of his own. Shauna, shy but creative, fell for his warmth. Their friends said they were inseparable — the golden couple of Boulder.

But by the summer of 1983, that story turned into one of America’s most haunting unsolved murders — a case that would shadow Robert Redford’s life for the next four decades.

Sid Wells was born in 1961 in Norton, Kansas, the youngest of three brothers. His father served in the Navy, and the family moved often. No matter where they went, Sid thrived. By the time he graduated from high school in Longmont, Colorado, in 1979, he had already mapped out his future: journalism, aviation, and service to his country.

At the University of Colorado, Sid joined the Navy ROTC, planning to become a Navy pilot after graduation. He was known for his kindness, his quick wit, and his deep loyalty to friends and family.

By his junior year, Sid was dating Shauna Redford. Their relationship was serious — the Redfords had welcomed him into their family. Robert Redford even flew Sid to New York to meet broadcaster Tom Brokaw, who later offered him a journalism internship.

Everything was falling into place.

Then came August 1, 1983.

Sid’s older brother, Sam Wells, returned home from a camping trip that afternoon. When he walked into their Boulder condo, he found Sid’s body lying face down on the floor.

He had been shot execution-style in the back of the head. He was 22 years old.

The news hit Boulder like an earthquake. Robert Redford immediately shut down production of his film The Natural and flew to Colorado to comfort Shauna and the Wells family.

But as detectives soon discovered, behind the tragedy was a web of secrets — and a killer who had already vanished.

Sid lived with his brother Sam and another roommate, Thayne Smika — a 24-year-old former student who had answered their ad for a roommate months earlier.

Smika was quiet, eccentric, and often late on rent. Friends later described him as “odd, secretive, and troubled.” He struggled financially, owed Sid money, and, according to some reports, had a small drug habit.

When police arrived at the crime scene, they found something strange: a note written after Sid’s death, with blood spatter beneath it. It was supposedly written by Smika, claiming he was going to visit family for a few days.

Investigators soon learned that Smika had indeed left Boulder the morning of the murder — carrying, witnesses said, a large trash can that looked unusually heavy.

When police searched his mother’s home days later, they found a 20-gauge Montgomery Ward shotgun — the exact caliber used to kill Sid.

The weapon, his sister admitted, hadn’t been there days earlier.

Police arrested Smika on October 6, 1983, but the case stalled. Despite the evidence, Boulder’s district attorney at the time declined to press charges, claiming there wasn’t enough to secure a conviction.

Smika was released.

And then — he was gone.

For a while, Smika stayed in Colorado, living quietly under the radar. Then, in 1986, his car was found abandoned in Beverly Hills, wiped clean of fingerprints.

He was never seen again.

In a 1997 interview, Smika’s parents admitted that he told them he was planning to change his name and disappear. They hinted they knew his new identity but refused to reveal it. “He said we should get passports,” his mother reportedly told detectives. “He wanted us to visit him… once he got settled.”

But they claimed they never heard from him again.

For years, Sid Wells’ case went cold — one more unsolved file collecting dust in Boulder’s archives.

But not for June Wells, Sid’s mother.

She refused to let her son be forgotten.

Between 1980 and 1983, June Wells lost her father, her husband, her mother, and her son. Yet she never stopped fighting.

She became an outspoken advocate for victims’ families, serving on the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s Cold Case Task Force.

In a 2012 interview, she said:

“I’ve moved beyond the grieving stage, but the pain is always there. Most of all, I miss Sid’s presence. Just having him around. I’ve never given up. How can I? I need justice for Sid.”

June’s strength inspired countless families of homicide victims. And she wasn’t alone.

Shauna Redford — the young woman who had loved Sid — stayed in touch with June for decades. She became a painter, married journalist Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), and had two children. But she never forgot Sid.

“Shauna climbed into bed with me after Sid died,” June once recalled, her voice trembling. “We just cried together. She was like a daughter to me.”

Together, they carried the torch — keeping Sid’s memory alive.

In 2008, a new district attorney, Stan Garnett, was elected in Boulder. He promised to revisit old cases. One of the first on his list: Sid Wells.

Working with the FBI, investigators reopened the file and reexamined the evidence with modern forensic technology.

The results were stunning.

New ballistic and forensic tests linked Thayne Smika directly to the murder. Witnesses also came forward — one claiming Smika had confessed to the killing after a night of drinking; another said his sister had been forced to wash bloody clothes the day Sid was killed.

On December 2, 2010, a Boulder judge finally signed an arrest warrant for Smika — now formally charged with first-degree murder.

A week later, the U.S. District Court issued a federal warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

But by then, Smika had been missing for nearly three decades.

He had, quite literally, vanished from the face of the earth.

For Robert Redford, the Sid Wells case was more than a tragedy — it was a wound that never healed.

He had seen his daughter’s heart broken, his family thrust into a public nightmare, and a young man he admired cut down before his life began.

In 2010, when the arrest warrant was finally issued, Redford personally called District Attorney Garnett to thank him.

“He sounded deeply emotional,” Garnett recalled. “He cared about Sid — not just because of his daughter, but because Sid was someone he truly respected.”

The tragedy haunted him for the rest of his life.

When Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025, at the age of 89, Sid’s name appeared again in the headlines.

The next day, the FBI in Denver reissued Smika’s wanted poster, renewing the $10,000 reward for information leading to his capture.

Even in death, Redford’s connection to the case brought it back into national focus — a reminder of a love story interrupted and a killer still walking free.

With every passing year, new whispers surface. Sightings of Smika in California, Canada, even South America — none ever confirmed.

Cold-case detectives remain convinced he’s alive, living under a different name.

“He’s not a ghost,” one retired investigator told The Denver Post in 2023. “Someone like him — he’d have found a way to survive. He’s out there.”

The most haunting detail? Smika would now be in his mid-60s — old enough to blend in anywhere. No fingerprints. No trail. No closure.

For Sid’s surviving brother, Robert Wells, the pain remains. “We just want to see justice,” he said after Redford’s death. “That’s all my mother ever wanted.”

The Sid Wells case has outlived nearly everyone who once fought for justice: June Wells, gone in 2014. Robert Redford, gone in 2025.

But their voices still echo — in court archives, in family interviews, in the faces of those who still remember a young man with kind eyes and a bright future.

“I don’t know if I’ll live long enough to see a resolution,” June once said. “But I’ll never stop hoping.”

She didn’t live to see justice. But her hope — and the love between two young students from different worlds — still lingers.

As the FBI renews its manhunt for Thayne Smika, the story of Sid Wells continues to haunt Boulder and Hollywood alike — a reminder that behind every unsolved case lies a family waiting, a mother praying, and a question that refuses to fade:

Where is Thayne Smika — and will justice ever find him?