Arrest made in 2007 cold case out of Fremont County

Fremont County detectives have made an arrest in a 12-year-old cold case.

Jeffery Brian Smith, 37, has been arrested for the murder of Remzi Nesfield.

Nesfield went missing in 2007 and his skeletal remains were discovered by a hiker in a remote area of Fremont County in 2016.

A forensic examination of the remains revealed that Nesfield’s death was caused by a gunshot wound to the head.

The remains were sent to the Human Identification Laboratory in Denver for analysis. The remains were identified in Dec. 2017 as Remzi Nesfield who had been reporting missing since 2007.

Smith is from Goodyear, Arizona and is currently being held at an Arizona jail. He is scheduled to be transported to Fremont County. Investigators tell KRDO, Smith confessed to the crime after a number of conversations.

“We had spoken to the suspect several times and their were inconsistencies in the interviews that were given so we were able to kind of poke holes in his story basically,” said Fremont County Detective Peter Rasmus.

Fremont County says they did not hae a whole lot to go off of in this case. For this cold case to be solved investigators had to put in a lot of hard work, but a few good breaks had to go their way as well.

“These types of cases really have a less than one percent chance of being solved,” said Fremont County Sheriff Allen Cooper.

Sheriff Cooper hopes he can finally bring some resolution to the Nesfield family who reported Remzi missing more than a decade ago.

Fremont County investigators say they received help from agencies all over the country in solving this cold case. Including El Paso County, Denver area, Arizona, even the NYPD all the way in New York.

Smith will likely face at least first degree homicide charges.