The last of three people being sought in a December 2020 robbery and shooting remained in the Clallam County jail on $500,000 bail on March 12 after he was charged with attempted murder and robbery.
Chad David Smith, 45, made his first court appearance Friday, March 10, in Clallam County Superior Court after his arrest on March 9 in Puyallup on an outstanding warrant.
He was charged with one count of attempted first-degree murder with a firearms enhancement, one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery with a firearms enhancement, one count of first-degree robbery with a firearms enhancement and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm.
Smith is set to be arraigned March 24.
Charges are the culmination of a more than two-year investigation into a December 2020 robbery and shooting in the 800 block of Youngquist Road in Sequim, according to the Clalam County Sheriff’s Office.
The victim was shot twice in the legs and robbed of three pounds of methamphetamine, according to deputies. Smith was arrested after a two-day, 22-hour manhunt by the Olympic Peninsula Narcotics Enforcement Team and numerous law enforcement agencies following a lead, according to a press release from the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.
“It was a lot of work. OPNET detectives were coordinating with those other agencies,” said Clallam County Detective Sgt. Brian Knutson.
“He walked out of a house to his car and he was arrested without incident. He he had a semiautomatic handgun on him.”
Investigators still need to do some work, but this closes the Howie case, Knutsen said.
Michael Howie, 43, of Sequim has been in Clallam County jail since Sept. 28, 2022, for investigation of conspiracy to commit robbery.
Knutson said another person involved is in jail elsewhere on unrelated charges.
“All three are in jail. The next step will be trial,” he said.
In addition to OPNET members, the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, Sequim Police Department, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Port Angeles Police Department and the U.S. Border Patrol coordinated with Tacoma FBI agents, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office and the state Department of Corrections to locate and arrest Smith.
On Dec. 29, 2020, Clallam County Sheriff’s deputies investigated a report of an early morning robbery and shooting in the 800 block of Youngquist Road in Sequim where a man had been shot in the legs and robbed of three pounds of methamphetamine, with an estimated street value between $21,000 and $39,000.
The man was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and survived.
A probable cause statement said Howie drove the two men to the victim’s recreational vehicle.
The statement said one of the men shot the victim with a handgun below his left knee, breaking a leg bone, and in his right foot while he was outside his recreational vehicle talking with them.
