Milwaukee man sentenced to 25 years in 1991 Gary stabbing

A Milwaukee man was sentenced to 25 years Wednesday after admitting he stabbed a man to death inside a Gary apartment in 1991, court records show.

The case went cold until investigators with the FBI’s Gang Response Investigative Unit linked Quentin Smith, now 51, through a DNA hit. The FBI’s Milwaukee Area Violent Crimes Task Force and GRIT investigators arrested Smith last year as he was being discharged from parole in another case.

A family member and friend found John Thomas Currie, 35, stabbed multiple times on Nov. 26, 1991, inside his apartment in the 2000 block of Carolina Street, according to newspaper reports. He had been stabbed in the head, face and neck. A coroner determined he died of stab wounds to the neck, and had additional defensive wounds on his hands.

Charging documents describe a “blood trail” from Currie’s car to his apartment. His door was unlocked. He was found inside, face down in the living room. A lamp was knocked over and a table pushed to the side.

Three pieces of a broken butcher knife were found near Currie’s body.

Investigators in 1991 pulled blood samples around the apartment, including the kitchen sink, and took other blood samples from the snow outside the building. They confiscated a bag with a “white unknown powder” from a dish strainer and a Newport cigarette butt.

They submitted evidence in October 1992 to the Indiana State Police’s Lowell lab that registered a blood match to Currie. A DNA hit from the kitchen sink in October 2021 matched Smith from a Wisconsin convicted offender list.

Smith denied knowing Currie and said he wasn’t sure if he was ever around his apartments, he said in a Nov. 12, 2021, police interview at a Wisconsin parole office.

He grew up in Gary, worked “odd jobs” and hung out in the streets. He moved to Wisconsin when he was 20 or 21, he told police.

When police implied they connected him to Currie’s death, he cut off the interview and asked for a lawyer. Investigators got a search warrant and took a DNA swab and his palm prints. Further DNA tests linked Smith to blood found at the crime scene.

Smith admitted to Currie’s death under “sudden heat,” according to court documents.