Smolinski Case Triggers Federal Law About Missing Adults

Story By John Murray

For nearly two decades a billboard of Billy Smolinski loomed over Waterbury and became nearly as iconic in the city as the Clock Tower and the Holy Land cross.

Hundreds of thousands of drivers along Route 8 and I-84 drove beneath a billboard that proclaimed Billy a missing and murdered man whose family was trying to bring his body home.

Law enforcement now believe that Billy was murdered on the night of August 24th, 2004 and his body buried somewhere in the lower Naugatuck Valley. A tip line was established by his parents, Bill and Jan Smolinski, and there was a $60,000 reward for information that directly led to his body.

There have been multiple digs, including the latest in November 2021, that attempted to unearth his remains. In 2023 the mystery of where Billy Smolinski is buried remains unsolved, but out of all the police missteps and family horror, something positive has emerged from the investigation and Jan and Bill Smolinski’s resolve to find their son.

As they tried to find Billy they collided with a broken federal system used to find missing adults, and they set out in 2009 to try and do something about it. With the help of Congressman Chris Murphy, legislation was introduced into the House of Representatives that would allow data banks containing information of missing adults to communicate with data banks containing information on the 50,000 unidentified dead across America.

The legislation was called Billy’s Law, and it passed the House of Representatives unanimously in January 2010, only to stall in the United States Senate.

It’s took 13 years, and several failed attempts by now U.S. Senator Chis Murphy to get the legislation through the Senate, but he forged a bi-partisan team and it passed unanimously. Murphy then handed the baton to Congresswoman Jahana Hayes who introduced Billy’s Law in the House of Representatives. Hayes championed Billy’s Law on the floor and tugged on the levers of power to get the legislation called for a vote in early December, and it passed 422-4.

On December 27th, 2022 President Joe Biden signed Billy’s Law, legislation that funds training for law enforcement about the proper use of the federal data banks and allows families of missing adults access to the data