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Family still hoping for answers in 2015 East Lansing cold case

Posted at 11:05 AM, Feb 09, 2019
and last updated 2019-02-09 14:03:22-05

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A family is still looking for answers more than four years after a man was shot to death in a parking ramp.

East Lansing police are still working to identify two men spotted on a store surveillance video who could be connected to the Feb. 5, 2015, shooting death of Michael Smith, the Lansing State Journal reported .

Andrea Smith, Michael Smith’s sister, is asking for anyone with information to tell authorities. She said the family has been waiting for years without answers or closure.

“Say something, speak up,” she said. “These men, they took someone’s father, someone’s brother, child. He took someone that was very important to us. How would you feel if it was your brother, your son, your child’s father?”

Michael Smith was out with his cousins the night of the shooting, but the details of the night are still unclear, said his mother, Beverly Smith.

“We’ve heard different stories,” she said. “But we don’t know the truth, and that’s what we’re searching for.”

Beverly Smith said the family tries to keep her son’s memory alive by playing his music and telling his daughter about him.

“She’s still too young for us to tell her what happened,” Smith said. “She just knows that her dad lives in heaven.”

Michael Smith dreamed of becoming a rapper, and one of his mother’s favorite songs he recorded is titled “Miss Me.”

“We do, we really miss him,” she said. “We miss him terribly. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him and wish he was still here.”