Amy M. Smith, a 44-year-old White woman, was killed during a violent confrontation inside a residence in the 5200 block of North Division Street in Davenport, Iowa, during the night of January 15 into the early morning of January 16, 2024. Amy was in a relationship with Brian L. Goodwin, who was also killed in the home. Police records showed that officers had been called to the address at approximately 11:46 p.m.
on January 15 for a reported violent domestic disturbance, only hours before firefighters were sent back to the property under far more devastating circumstances.
Shortly before 4 a.m. on January 16, Davenport firefighters arrived after receiving a report of a residential fire. Smoke was coming from the apartment, but crews were able to extinguish the flames quickly. During their search, firefighters discovered Amy and Brian dead inside. The origin of the fire and the condition of the bodies immediately raised suspicions that this was not an accidental tragedy. Davenport police identified the victims two days later and announced that both deaths were being investigated as homicides.
Investigators eventually determined that Amy and Brian had suffered fatal gunshot wounds. Prosecutors later told jurors that their bodies had been doused with an accelerant and burned. Authorities alleged that the fire was deliberately started after the killings in an effort to mutilate the remains, destroy evidence and conceal the murders. What initially appeared to be a deadly house fire was therefore revealed as the aftermath of a double shooting and an attempted cover-up.
The investigation focused on Adriana Blake and Devon Braet, who had been living with Amy and Brian in the months before the killings. Prosecutors said tensions had been developing inside the home and that Brian had wanted Blake and Braet to leave. The state's case was that the pair killed Amy and Brian, robbed them and then set fire to the residence to hide what they had done. Blake's defense disputed that account and emphasized the drug use and unstable circumstances among the people living in the home, arguing that those problems did not automatically prove that she had committed murder.
On February 7, 2024, Davenport police announced extensive charges against Blake and Braet, both of whom were already being held on unrelated matters. Each was initially charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of abuse of a corpse, second-degree arson, going armed with intent, weapons offenses, assaults committed while participating in a felony and a controlled-substance offense. Police alleged that the defendants intentionally used fire on the victims' bodies in an attempt to conceal the underlying murders.
A third person, Melisa M. Weber, was also arrested in connection with the aftermath of the killings. Weber initially faced allegations that included aiding and abetting, second-degree arson, abuse of a corpse and accessory after the fact. She later pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact. Weber was sentenced to two years of supervised probation, resolving her part of the criminal case without a murder conviction.
Blake and Braet were originally scheduled to be tried together, but their cases were separated during the proceedings. Blake's trial continued first. Prosecutors presented evidence that Amy and Brian had been shot before their bodies were covered with accelerant and burned. In May 2025, a Scott County jury found Blake guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree robbery, two counts of assault while participating in a felony causing serious injury, possession or control of a firearm by a felon, two counts of abuse of a corpse and first-degree arson.
At Blake's sentencing on August 28, 2025, the judge denied her request for a new trial and imposed the mandatory punishment of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. She was also ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution to each victim's family. Members of Amy's family delivered emotional statements describing the permanent loss created by the murder and the future that had been taken from her.
Braet was tried separately in June and July 2025. His defense maintained that Blake had acted alone, while prosecutors argued that both defendants participated in the crimes and the burning of the bodies. On July 10, the jury convicted Braet of one count of first-degree murder in Brian's death, two counts of assault, going armed with intent, use of a dangerous weapon during a crime, two counts of abuse of a corpse and two counts of second-degree arson. He was acquitted of the separate first-degree murder count connected specifically to Amy's death, as well as several robbery and weapons charges.
Although the jury did not convict Braet of murdering Amy, it found that he participated in serious crimes surrounding the double homicide, including the abuse and burning of both victims' bodies. On October 15, 2025, Braet was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the first-degree murder conviction, along with sentences for the related offenses. The convictions of Blake and Braet, together with Weber's guilty plea, brought criminal accountability for the shooting, destruction of evidence and concealment efforts that followed Amy and Brian's deaths.
Amy was remembered by her family as a loving daughter, sister, aunt, friend and mother of three children. Her relatives acknowledged that she had struggled with addiction but stressed that her difficulties did not define the entirety of her life. They described someone who was deeply loved and whose family had feared addiction might one day take her, never imagining that her life would instead end through such deliberate violence.
