Smith pleads no contest, gets life sentences
By Byron Spires– Herald Editor

Smith is processed after pleading no contest to four murders.
Photo by Byron Spires

Although it was not what family members of Kimberly Walker, 18, Latricia Jackson, her 14-year-old sister, Deondra Scott, her 35-year-old mother, and Terrel Brown, her 9-year-old cousin, wanted, closure did come for one of Gadsden County’s most heinous crimes.
Willie Smith Jr. received five consecutive life sentences without parole after he pleaded no contest in the murder trial of his four victims.
Circuit Judge Kevin Davey gave Smith the state-directed minimum sentences of life in prison.
In addition, Judge Davey gave Smith a life sentence for the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The charge carried a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
Smith had been dating Walker at the time of the murders. He went to Scott’s home on Atwater Road in the Hardaway community about ten miles west of Quincy and for an unknown reason killed all four of the victims execution style while in the mobile home.
Smith took Scott’s car and drove to his mother’s home where he told her what he had done. She in turn called a neighbor and then-deputy sheriff Morris Young.
Smith was at his father’s home in Gretna when Young arrived and surrendered to Young.
Judge Davey gave Smith an opportunity to speak to the courtroom. Smith turned solemnly to the crowd and tearfully said, “I just want to tell the family I’m sorry.” He did not give any explanation for what he had done.
Davey gave the family of the victims a chance to speak after the sentencing was announced. Several family members were disappointed that Smith did not get the death penalty.
Kimberly’s father, James Williams, told the court and Smith that the family had wanted the death sentence. “He deserves the death penalty,” Williams said.
Family member Elizabeth Richardson told Smith that his actions had changed her family’s lives forever. “I believe Mr. Smith will be judged by Jesus,” Richardson said.
Desmona McWhite, the sister of Scott, said that Smith had stolen the lives from her sister, nieces and nephew.
“I have no respect for Willie Smith,” Richardson said. She added that her wish had been that Smith would receive the same punishment he had given her family members.
Although it was not the sentencing her family wanted, Richardson said, “hopefully it will be closure for my family.”
After the family spoke, Judge Davey explained the reasoning for the life-in-prison sentencing.
There has been several delays in the trial because of Smith’s mental state.
Judge Davey told the packed courtroom that he had spent over eleven hours reviewing testimony concerning Smith’s mental state. Smith met two of the three criteria, he said, to face a trial involving the death penalty. The problem was the third criteria.
Judge Davey said that Smith’s mental capability was close to meeting the third criteria in determining if someone is too severely retarded to face the death penalty.
If ten judges were to look at this information, Judge Davey said, five would probably say yes and five would probably say no.
And although Smith might be found guilty by a jury, it was a close call at best as to whether the death penalty would ever be carried out. Death penalty cases spend years in appeals courts, he told the family.
The sentencing of Smith, Judge Davey said, “will end today, not begin today.”
“This may be an incomplete justice, but we all know that will be meted out by God in the end,” Judge Davey said.
Then turning to the defendent, Judge Davey said, “may God have mercy on your soul.”