An 88-year-old Florence man pleaded guilty Monday to voluntary manslaughter under Colorado Revised Statutes from 1965 in the death of his former girlfriend’s baby who died Nov. 2, 1967.
Keith Smith was sentenced under a plea agreement to four years of supervised probation.
Roxanne Marie Archuletta was just 14 months old when she was found lifeless in her bed. The baby’s mother, Norma Lyne Archuletta, who was 28 at the time, and Keith Emmanuel Smith, who was 30 at the time of the incident, were brought in for questioning regarding the baby’s death and were later released.
“Because of this crime, we never got to grow up together, attend each other’s graduations, weddings and other family events,” said La Cole Archuletta, Roxanne’s older sister, during Monday’s sentencing hearing. “We never got to be aunts to each other’s children. Her death left a void in my life, as well as in my family’s life.”
According to previous Daily Record articles, Smith had been playing with Roxanne when she fell about four feet from a bunk bed. He said he didn’t see the fall but turned around in time to see her land on her back and fall over. After picking her up and quieting her cries, Smith said he put her back in her crib.
A coroner’s inquest was called after a mortician noticed what he said appeared to be injuries. The jury ruled Nov. 21, 1967, that the baby died of “accidental injuries.”
At the time of the original examination, Dr. Raoul Urich, a Colorado Springs pathologist, opined that the injuries that he saw were because of blunt force trauma – most likely a blow to the back of the spine – and that these injuries were not consistent with a fall.
“She was left at 14 months old to die a painful death at the hands of a man who has shown no remorse and still hasn’t admitted the truth of what he did to her,” said Rhone Peterson, Roxanne’s only niece. “The defendant has been on this earth for 88 years, and for 57 years he has lived without accountability for taking the life of an innocent little baby. While he has lived a comfortable life without punishment, our family has been torn apart from this man’s actions.”
Florence Police Department Detectives Jeff Worley and Alex Wold began re-investigating the case in 2021, which was later sent to a grand jury.
Members of the Archueltta family, through oral and written testimony, felt that no jail time for Smith was a “slap in the face” to Roxanne. They said the judicial system is trying to protect Smith because they feel sorry for his age and health issues, and they feel the cold case is being swept under the rug.
“The defendant has caused generations worth of trauma and grief that are still being felt today, even by those who did not know Roxanne,” Peterson said. “… My family shouldn’t have had to witness her being exhumed just to result in four years of probation with no incarceration for her killer.”
Deputy District Attorney Mark Hurlbert agreed with family members that Smith should have been sent to prison in 1967, but he was not held accountable by law enforcement, the criminal justice system and the DA’s Office at the time.
“The court has to sentence him as he is today,” he said. “That is why we have made the offer that we made and why we are asking that this court grant this defendant probation and no jail time at this point. … Ultimately, what this plea does, is it holds the defendant accountable. The defendant got up, he said he was guilty, that he was guilty of the death of Roxanne Archuletta. In this case, the People feel that is justice, that we have a person that is responsible – who has admitted he is responsible for the death of this little girl.”
Smith declined to comment during the hearing, but his attorney, Karl Tameler, said if his client was 45, 55, or even 65, they would be taking this case to trial.
“This case has burdened him,” he said. “He has had ailments that the stress of this case has exacerbated, and he simply did not feel he could go through with the trial.”
Tameler said Smith has lived a law-abiding life, having helped a long-time girlfriend raise her two daughters as his own without any obligation to do so.
“They are where they are because of him,” he said. “They love him and they cherish him and they speak extremely highly of him.”
Fremont County District Court Judge Kaitlin Turner said she was surprised to hear from so many family members who were not happy with the plea agreement, but if she were to reject it, the case would start over.
“I think what we’ve all heard is no one is happy with this plea agreement today,” she said. “Anything that we do here today isn’t going to bring satisfaction, really, to anyone, and that’s the difficulty of a case that is just so old.”
The El Paso County Coroner’s Office began an autopsy March 2, 2022, when Roxanne was disinterred from her burial site at Union Highland Cemetery in Florence, according to cemetery records. Her cause of death was listed as “unknown.”
Smith was indicted Sept. 7, 2023, on suspicion of causing the baby’s death. According to the indictment, Smith was arrested on one amended count of second-degree murder, a Class 2 felony. If convicted, he would have faced 16-48 years in the Department of Corrections.
In an autopsy report, Dr. Megan Kliesner ruled the manner of the baby’s death a homicide when the autopsy and investigation were completed Aug. 16, 2022.
Kliensner opined that Roxanne died as a result of blunt force injuries to the spine.
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