Evidence Not Enough to Charge Anyone for Backyard Body Incident

Marin County's district attorney said prosecutors don't have the evidence to file any charges in the Novato case of a man's body found in February buried in his own backyard, according to the .

, 74, suffered from several serious illnesses before he was reported missing by a neighbor on Feb. 9, according to Huge Levine, attorney for Smith's widow, Evelyn Smith. After Dale Smith's body was exhumed on Feb. 23, several neighbors said he had not been seen in months.

"There were no signs of gross injuries. They have nothing,” Levine said in May. “They don't know how the man died.”

Evelyn Smith, who was questioned by the police Feb. 9 and remains free, had told investigators that Dale Smith out of town was visiting his brother. When the brother told police that wasn't true, detectives sought a search warrant for the house at 4 Rebecca Way on Novato's east side. Several agencies, including the FBI and search-and-rescue crews, aided Novato police in the discovery and exhumation of the badly decomposed body.

Novato police said the autopsy and toxicology reports from the coroner’s unit of the Marin County Sheriff’s Department as to a cause of death. Novato police Captain Jim Berg said the results showed no signs of trauma or poisoning.

Levine previously said Dale Smith suffered from bladder cancer, esophageal cancer and congestive heart disease, and that the only evidence of a crime is the improper disposal of remains.

Check out this story in the IJ.