Man charged in Maryland deputy sheriff's 1971 killing

GAITHERSBURG, Md. (AP) — A New York man has been arrested and charged with killing a law enforcement officer in Maryland more than 50 years ago, police said Wednesday.

Larry David Smith, 71, admitted to shooting Montgomery County Special Deputy Sheriff Capt. James Tappen Hall in 1971 when police detectives interviewed him in New York last Thursday, the Montgomery County Police Department said in a news release.

Hall died from a gunshot wound three days after he was found lying face down in a parking lot in Rockville, Maryland, on Oct. 23, 1971. Investigators believe Hall had interrupted a burglary.

Smith, also known as Larry David Becker, was interviewed by investigators in 1973 but wasn't labeled a suspect in Hall's killing back then, police said.

Detectives from the Montgomery County Police Department's cold case unit reopened the investigation last year around the 50th anniversary of the deadly shooting. Smith was arrested Thursday but the department's news release doesn't specify how the detectives initially linked him to the shooting.

The detectives determined that Becker began using the last name Smith around 1975 and had been living in Little Falls, New York, for more than 45 years, police said. Little Falls, a city with roughly 5,000 residents in New York's Herkimer County, is about 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of Albany.

Authorities expect to bring Smith back to Maryland by the end of this week.

The department says Hall's killing is the oldest cold case that it has ever solved.