Prosecutor says religious parents punished their 8-year-old son to death
By Matt Pordum
Court TV
MARIETTA, Ga. — An 8-year-old boy is dead because of the "horrible abuse" inflicted on him by his parents, strict disciplinarians who followed severe religious doctrine, a prosecutor told a jury Tuesday.
Sonya and Joseph Smith were watching an online church service offered by the Remnant Fellowship Church on Oct. 8, 2003, but their 8-year-old son, Josef, was misbehaving, according to prosecutor Eleanor Dixon.
Josef wasn't being obedient and wasn't praying.
The Nashville, Tennessee-based church encourages parents to physically discipline their children and maintain strict dietary control.
Dixon said Josef's then-13-year-old brother told police that his parents decided to punish Josef by putting him in a small wicker box with the lid closed, then tying electrical cords around it to prevent him from escaping.
After the church service was over and the Smiths undid the cords, they noticed "Josef wasn't exactly breathing," Dixon said.
Doctors determined he was brain dead, and he died a day later at the hospital, Dixon told jurors.
The couple has been charged with four counts of murder, five counts of first-degree cruelty to children, three counts of aggravated assault and two counts of false imprisonment.
Josef had threatened his family and carved the words "hate you" and "kill" into the walls of their Georgia home, Dixon said, but the Smiths never sought professional help for him.
"The evidence will be there was no trip to the doctor and no trip to the counselor," Dixon said. "There was beating after beating after beating and then he died."
The prosecutor said Josef's brother will testify that his parents regularly beat the boy, using everything from a 12-inch glue stick used inside a glue gun to coat hangers to a wooden board they called "the butt-buster."
She said the couple also used a cord that connected washing machines to the wall to abuse the 8-year-old.
Dixon said the doctors who treated Josef and performed the autopsy will testify that the boy had both fresh and old scars on his body that show that he was abused over a period of months. This evidence resulted in the multiple charges of assault and cruelty to children.
The prosecutor said Josef's older brother told police that his parents locked Josef in a closet for hours and monitored him via a video camera the couple placed inside.
"This was not a time-out. This was isolation," Dixon said.
The Smiths' attorney, Manubir "Manny" Arora, told jurors that, although pictures of the 8-year-old's injuries "are so bad it may make you sick to your stomach," the boy did not die of those injuries.
Arora told the jury the medical examiners performed a "deficient autopsy" in which they failed "to independently verify what they were saying."
"As bad as the bruises on the body look, they did not cause his death," Arora said, noting that he plans to call experts who did further analysis.
Click Here To Read Entire Article
Destee
By Matt Pordum
Court TV
MARIETTA, Ga. — An 8-year-old boy is dead because of the "horrible abuse" inflicted on him by his parents, strict disciplinarians who followed severe religious doctrine, a prosecutor told a jury Tuesday.
Sonya and Joseph Smith were watching an online church service offered by the Remnant Fellowship Church on Oct. 8, 2003, but their 8-year-old son, Josef, was misbehaving, according to prosecutor Eleanor Dixon.
Josef wasn't being obedient and wasn't praying.
The Nashville, Tennessee-based church encourages parents to physically discipline their children and maintain strict dietary control.
Dixon said Josef's then-13-year-old brother told police that his parents decided to punish Josef by putting him in a small wicker box with the lid closed, then tying electrical cords around it to prevent him from escaping.
After the church service was over and the Smiths undid the cords, they noticed "Josef wasn't exactly breathing," Dixon said.
Doctors determined he was brain dead, and he died a day later at the hospital, Dixon told jurors.
The couple has been charged with four counts of murder, five counts of first-degree cruelty to children, three counts of aggravated assault and two counts of false imprisonment.
Josef had threatened his family and carved the words "hate you" and "kill" into the walls of their Georgia home, Dixon said, but the Smiths never sought professional help for him.
"The evidence will be there was no trip to the doctor and no trip to the counselor," Dixon said. "There was beating after beating after beating and then he died."
The prosecutor said Josef's brother will testify that his parents regularly beat the boy, using everything from a 12-inch glue stick used inside a glue gun to coat hangers to a wooden board they called "the butt-buster."
She said the couple also used a cord that connected washing machines to the wall to abuse the 8-year-old.
Dixon said the doctors who treated Josef and performed the autopsy will testify that the boy had both fresh and old scars on his body that show that he was abused over a period of months. This evidence resulted in the multiple charges of assault and cruelty to children.
The prosecutor said Josef's older brother told police that his parents locked Josef in a closet for hours and monitored him via a video camera the couple placed inside.
"This was not a time-out. This was isolation," Dixon said.
The Smiths' attorney, Manubir "Manny" Arora, told jurors that, although pictures of the 8-year-old's injuries "are so bad it may make you sick to your stomach," the boy did not die of those injuries.
Arora told the jury the medical examiners performed a "deficient autopsy" in which they failed "to independently verify what they were saying."
"As bad as the bruises on the body look, they did not cause his death," Arora said, noting that he plans to call experts who did further analysis.
Click Here To Read Entire Article
Destee