Lyman Bostock - Aftermath

Aftermath

Leonard Smith was tried twice for murder, with his lawyers arguing that Barbara Smith's alleged infidelity had driven him insane. The first trial resulted in a hung jury. In the second trial, Smith was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed for psychiatric treatment. Within seven months, he was deemed no longer mentally ill by his psychiatrists and released. Including his time in jail awaiting and during trial, Smith's time in custody amounted to 21 months. In the aftermath of Smith's case, the legislature in Indiana changed the state's insanity laws. After the change, a person found to be insane at the time of the commission of a crime could still be found legally guilty, and thus could be sent to prison if and when he or she was released from psychiatric treatment.

Smith returned to Gary, Indiana, where he resided for the remainder of his life, moving in his later years to a high-rise apartment building for senior citizens. He died there of natural causes on December 17, 2010, at the age of 64. After his 1980 release from custody, he never again ran afoul of the law and he declined all requests to comment publicly about the death of Bostock.

In his four-season career, Bostock was a .311 hitter with 23 home runs and 250 RBIs in 526 games. The Angels wore a black armband in memory of Bostock for the remainder of the 1978 season. He is interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. A memorial scholarship fund was commissioned in his name, and is annually awarded to a needy CSUN student athlete. In 1981, he became the first inductee into the CSU Northridge Matadors Hall of Fame.