Arkansas killer of five condemned to death
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Arkansas killer of five condemned to death
March 19, 1999
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - A jury deliberated for only an hour
before
sentencing an Arkansas man to death Thursday night for the murders a
year ago
of five people, including three children.
The same jury earlier Thursday found Clay King Smith, 28, guilty of five
counts
of capital felony murder.
"It's an incredible relief, knowing that they gave him the death
penalty," said
Tabitha Bunting, whose sister, Misty Erwin, 20, lived with Smith and was
among
his victims.
"I was afraid he was going to do it again," Bunting said, referring to
Smith.
The dead also included Erwin's 24-year-old cousin and her two children,
aged
five and three, and a 12-year-old girl who was a family friend.
All five were shot to death at a mobile home in the Jefferson community,
about
45 miles southeast of Little Rock. A detective who arrested Smith last
March
26, the day after the murders, testified that Smith had told him he had
been
using drugs on the day of the killings.
The slayings were overshadowed in the news media by the fatal shooting
of four
young students and a teacher at Jonesboro, Arkansas, which occurred on
the same
day that the bodies of the five victims in the mobile home shooting were
discovered.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of yesterday's Reuters news wire:
Killer Of Five Sentenced To Die
March 19, 1999
(JEFFERSON COUNTY) -- A man found guilty of murdering five people has
been
sentenced to death by lethal injection. Three children were among Clay
Smith's
victims. Before jurors left to deliberate his sentence, Clay told them
he
agreed that the shootings were cold blooded, but insisted he didn't do
it. The
statement goes directly against testimony given by a deputy who said
Smith told
him he "sent three of them to heaven, but didn't know where the hell
the other
two would go." The deputy also said Smith admitted to the killings but
blamed
them on his being high on drugs at the time.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 3/19/99 online edition of The
Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette newspaper:
Defense calls no witnesses; killer of 5 to die, jury says
EMMETT GEORGE
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
PINE BLUFF -- Clay King Smith was sentenced to die by lethal injection
after a
jury found him guilty Thursday of five counts of capital murder.
Outside the courtroom, Brenda Cox Bratton, the mother of victim
Samantha
Rhodes, told reporters, "He may have sent my daughter to heaven, but
today the
state sent him to hell."
Bratton was referring to testimony Wednesday in which Jay Moser, an
investigator with the Jefferson County sheriff's office, said Smith told
him
during a standoff with officers that "I sent three of them to heaven. I
don't
know where in the hell the other two went."
It took the jury of eight women and four men about an hour to decide
the
fate of Smith, 28, formerly of 3105 Pine Road. The trial lasted four
days at
the Jefferson County Courthouse.
Relatives of the victims wept openly as Circuit Court Judge H.A.
Taylor
read the sentence. Extra deputies packed the courtroom Thursday to
prevent
outbursts and to keep order.
Last year, Smith was charged in the March 25, 1998, deaths of his
girlfriend, Misty Erwin, 20, who lived with him in a mobile home near
Jefferson; Erwin's cousin, Shelly Sorg, 24, of Pine Bluff; Sorg's
children,
Taylor Nicole Sorg, 3, and Sean Michael Sorg, 5; and family friend
Samantha,
12, also of Pine Bluff.
Deputies found the victims in Smith's two-bedroom home after
relatives
filed missing persons reports with the sheriff's office. All of the
victims had
been shot multiple times in the head except for Taylor Sorg, who was
killed by
a single gunshot wound in the face, an expert from the state Crime
Laboratory
in Little Rock testified Wednesday.
Smith was shot in the right arm by an Arkansas State Police officer
and
arrested March 26, 1998, at his brother's residence near Star City.
Walt Chavis, an El Dorado police officer and Smith's brother, was
brought
to the scene to talk Smith into surrendering. After the verdict
Thursday,
Chavis said "it hasn't been easy. It's just something you have to bear."
Smith
is the youngest of six brothers, Chavis said.
During closing remarks, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kim Bridgforth
said,
"There is nothing more deliberate than when you walk up to a 5-year-old
child
and shoot him in the head."
Smith's attorney, Dale Adams of Little Rock, pointed to "gaps in
evidence,
the fact that cigarette butts, a whiskey bottle and blood splatters on
the
walls and ceiling and a fingerprint at the front door were not sent to
the
crime lab for analysis.
"They zoomed in on him and didn't consider anybody else," Adams
said,
adding that Shelly Sorg's husband, who had threatened her three times,
"was
never eliminated as a suspect."
Adams said if jurors had reasonable doubt, they could opt for a
lesser
sentence of first or second-degree murder or acquittal.
On Thursday morning, Adams and Smith's other attorney, Maxie Kizer
of Pine
Bluff, began the day by resting their case without calling a single
witness
after Smith declared that he wanted to serve as his own attorney.
The jury went out at 11:10 a.m. to deliberate Smith's guilt or
innocence.
While they were out, Smith's attorneys announced that Smith did not want
them
to introduce any mitigating circumstances during the penalty phase of
the
trial.
Taylor asked Smith if he knew he had a constitutional right to offer
such
evidence to the jury. He also asked Smith if he was under the influence
of any
drug, alcohol or had a mental disease that would prompt him to make such
a
decision.
"Do you realize the consequences?" Taylor asked.
"Yes," Smith responded.
"Do you want to share with the court why you are doing this?"
"No," Smith responded.
Kizer then summarized the evidence he said he would have presented
if Smith
had let him, which included the fact that Smith had no significant
criminal
history and had attended Central Bible College in Springfield, Mo., for
three
years.
He said Smith had become a youth minister but had had recurring drug
problems since he was 12 years old.
The jury returned about 12:30 p.m. and delivered their guilty
verdict on
all five counts.
When the jurors returned from lunch at 2 p.m. to begin deliberating
the
penalty phase, Taylor told them of Smith's decision. Smith then stood
before
them and made a rambling statement.
"I am not guilty," Smith said. "You've accused me of killing the
most loved
person in my life, my fiancee [Misty Erwin]. While I may not agree with
the
jury's verdict, you must respect it."
Prosecuting Attorney Steve Dalrymple objected, and Taylor admonished
Smith
to confine his comments to the penalty phase of the trial.
Smith said he had played with one of the child victims and also
tried to
get the prosecutors to project a photograph of Misty Erwin onto a
monitor for
the jurors, which drew another objection from Dalrymple.
After a short conference between the attorneys, Smith stood back up
and
told the jury, "I respect your decision. You found me guilty of killing
Misty
and four other people. I've lost my life anyway."
Dalrymple told the jury that Smith "still stands in denial. ...
There are
no mitigating circumstances. The state has asked for the death penalty,
and we
do not do that lightly."
The jury went back out at 2:59 p.m. to deliberate Smith's sentence.
Jurors
returned about 4 p.m. with a recommendation that he be put to death.
Taylor did not set an execution date.
This article was published on Friday, March 19, 1999
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The following appears courtesy of the 3/18/99 online edition of The
Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette newspaper:
Trial begins in deaths of 5; investigators detail scene
EMMETT GEORGE
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
PINE BLUFF -- Clay King Smith's attorneys battled unsuccessfully
Wednesday to
keep statements Smith made to officers about killing five people from
the jury.
After a short hearing, Circuit Judge H.A. Taylor of Pine Bluff ruled
that
the Jefferson County Circuit Court jury of eight women and four men
could hear
the testimony during the first day of Smith's trial on five counts of
capital
murder.
During a tense standoff with law enforcement officers on March 26,
1998,
Smith shouted at officers, "I sent three of them to heaven. I don't know
where
the hell the other two went," investigator Jay Moser of the Jefferson
County
sheriff's office testified Wednesday.
"I wish I could take a couple of days back. I was on drugs, I was
high,"
Moser said Smith yelled at the officers, who had chased him to his
brother's
hunting camp on County Road 29 near Star City.
"He said, 'Be a man, just shoot me,' tapping his hand on his chest,"
Moser
said.
Smith held a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle throughout the
55-minute
ordeal, which ended when an Arkansas State Police officer shot Smith in
the
right arm. As Smith tumbled to the ground, deputies from Jefferson and
Lincoln
counties converged on him and disarmed him.
The day before Smith's arrest, Jefferson County sheriff's deputies
found
five bodies, including three children, in a mobile home at 3105 Pinto
Road near
Jefferson in the northern part of the county.
Smith, 28, had shared the mobile home with his girlfriend, Misty
Erwin, 20,
who was one of the victims. Also dead were Erwin's cousin, Shelly Sorg,
24, of
Pine Bluff; Sorg's two children, Sean Michael Sorg, 5, and Taylor Nicole
Sorg,
3; and family friend Samantha Rhodes, 12, also of Pine Bluff.
If convicted, Smith could get life in prison without parole or death
by
injection.
In trying to keep the statements from the jury, Smith's attorney,
Dale
Adams of Pine Bluff, called Smith to the witness stand Wednesday. Under
questioning, Smith said the officers yelled as they pursued him, "We
know it's
the drugs, Clay. We know you did it."
Smith said he did not believe the officers when they told him they
had
brought his brother, Walt Chavis, an El Dorado police officer, to the
scene to
try to talk him into surrendering.
"Did he [Moser] try to convince you that no one would get hurt if
you put
the gun down?" Prosecuting Attorney Steve Dalrymple asked. "Yes, he said
he
wouldn't put the handcuffs on me," Smith responded.
Adams asked Moser if Smith ever threatened the officers with the
rifle by
pointing it directly at them. Moser said Smith never pointed the weapon
at the
officers, but "kind of leaned on it."
On Wednesday morning, the jury got its first look at the bloody
photographs
taken at the crime scene. Several family members dashed from the
courtroom in
tears when the enlarged photos were revealed. Brenda Cox, Samantha
Rhodes'
mother, sat quietly clutching a small blue stuffed elephant she kept to
remember her daughter.
Investigators said the victims were found in a bedroom and the
living room
of the two-bedroom mobile home.
Charles Paul Kokes, an assistant medical examiner with the state
Crime
Laboratory in Little Rock, testified that all of the victims except
Taylor Sorg
died from multiple gunshot wounds. Taylor Sorg was killed by a single
shot to
the face, Kokes said.
The other victims were shot in the head, arm and upper body, and
some of
them were shot at close range, Kokes said.
Ronald Andrejack of the Crime Laboratory testified that bullets
removed
from the victims matched the rifle deputies recovered from Smith. He
also said
ballistic matches were obtained with most of the eleven shell casings
recovered
from the mobile home.
At the time of the crime, family members told a reporter that Smith
had
repeatedly abused Erwin, but she would not leave him.
Cpl. Calvin Terry of the Jefferson County sheriff's office testified
that
he was called to the residence on March 23, 1998, to help Erwin remove
her
belongings from the mobile home. When he arrived, Terry said he also
found
Smith.
"He began to talk nice," Terry said. "He [Smith] said she didn't
have to
leave. He said he would leave." Terry said he advised Erwin to go to a
women's
shelter in Pine Bluff, but Erwin changed her mind about leaving.
Sandra Haynes, a neighbor who lives across the street, said she saw
Smith
leave the mobile home through the front door shortly after midnight on
March
24. She said Smith stared at her for "a good ten seconds" before getting
in his
car and driving off.
Prosecutors noted that deputies reported that when they arrived at
the
mobile home about 10:30 p.m. March 25, the front door was barricaded by
furniture.
Deputy Andy Hoots said he entered through the back door of the home
with
Mark Lackey, the landlord. Lackey had called the sheriff's office after
he
entered the home and reportedly saw blood stains on the carpet.
Moser, who was the lead investigator in the case, said Jefferson
County
Coroner Holly Watkins-Sperry indicated to him that the victims had been
dead 22
to 36 hours when they were found.
Sheriff's office investigator Steve Moreau said as he entered the
mobile
home with Moser shortly after 11 p.m., officers first found the
blood-soaked
bodies of Rhodes and Sean Sorg in the west bedroom near the back of the
residence and found the other victims in the living room. Misty Erwin
was
slumped over in a recliner and Taylor Sorg and Shelly Sorg were found on
a
couch, covered with bedding.
After testimony from the Crime Laboratory employees, the state
rested its
case.
The trial will resume at 9 a.m. today when the defense begins to
present
its case.
This article was published on Thursday, March 18, 1999