Dylan ‘Casper’ Smith: Tributes for troubled Gold Coast man dead in stolen car crash at Coolangatta

Friends and family are paying tribute to a young Gold Coast man who died age 28 when he lost control of a car was driving at Coolangatta on Australia Day morning.

Dylan 'Casper' Smith, 28, died on the morning of January 26, 2025, at Dixon St, Coolangatta, after a single-vehicle accident. Picture: Facebook

The mother of a man killed in a single-vehicle Australia Day collision at Coolangatta is being mourned by his mother, who says her life “will never be the same”.

Dylan Smith, 28, a Tweed Heads native who more recently lived on the Gold Coast, according to his social media profiles, lost his life on Dixon St, Coolangatta, about 4.50am on January 26. A stolen Suzuki S-Cross he was driving crashed into two parked vehicles and a fence near the intersection with Stapylton St.

The Suzuki was reported stolen from a Bilinga address on January 21, while the registration plates had been reported stolen some time prior to the Suzuki theft.

The reasons for the crash involving Smith, known commonly by the nickname ‘Casper’, are unknown.

Police, in their most recent update on the afternoon of January 26, said the Forensic Crash Unit was investigating.

Smith’s crestfallen mother shared on social media her devastation.

“My life will never be the same without my son,” she said.

Dylan 'Casper' Smith, 28, died on the morning of January 26, 2025, at Dixon St, Coolangatta, after a single-vehicle accident. Picture: Facebook

Friends were likewise rocked by the news of Smith’s untimely death.

“Rest in peace my brother, I wish I called yesterday,” said one of his hometown friends.

“GBNF [gone but not forgotten].”

Another recalled Smith’s transition from enemy to friend.

“I remember when he gave me a good flogging at the Cooly skate park [Coolangatta Skatepark] and then we were mates,” he said.

At times Smith lived a troubled existence: in 2019 he was named in court documents as having been a friend and criminal associate of fatal shooting victim Ace Hall, killed on June 24, 2017, by Phillip Becker, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Becker was subsequently sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment.

A man has died in a single-vehicle collision at about 4.50am Sunday, January 26, at Dixon St, Coolangatta. Picture: Facebook

Smith and Hall, methamphetamine users and low-level suppliers, were “involved in criminal activity around the Gold Coast and Tweed areas,” according to court documents, and Smith also toted around a shortened single-barrel shotgun on behalf of another criminal associate.

It was Smith and another woman who drove the ailing Hall to Tweed Valley Hospital, where Smith left him before fleeing.

Sequoialee Harrison, who had known Smith since about 2015, acknowledged her friend’s troubles with the law but said he was redeemed by his unshakeable loyalty to friends and family.

Smith’s friend Ace Hall, who died from a gunshot wound in mid 2017. Picture: File

“He was the most solid, happiest person as long as his family and friends were okay, especially his mum,” Ms Harrison said.

“He spent more time in jail than out in the big world but on and off would come to the [Gold] Coast and back to Tweed – as he said himself, ‘I’m a Tweed breed’.

Ms Harrison said she credited Smith with saving her from a domestically violent relationship in which she feared for her life.

“He was like a brother to me,” she said.

“He just wanted to be loved.”

Originally published as Dylan ‘Casper’ Smith: Tributes for troubled Gold Coast man dead in stolen car crash at Coolangatta