Witness: Boy in beating death case was covered with bruises

<p>Jurors in the case of a couple accused of beating to death their 8-year-old child examined emergency room photographs Wednesday showing what appeared to be bruises and injuries on the boy's body.</p><p>The panel of 10 women and four men made no visible reaction as they examined the pictures of injuries on Josef Smith's head, shoulder, back and leg. The panel includes two alternates, who Superior Court Judge James Bodiford has not identified.</p><p>"You can see the bruises and injuries which appear to be in various stages of healing and occurrence," said then-Detective Steven Gaynor of Cobb County Police. Gaynor currently works for the department's special operations unit.</p><p>Joseph and Sonya Smith are accused of Josef's October 2003 death.</p><p>Gaynor said Joseph Smith said in interviews that he had disciplined Josef Smith "four or five times" with a glue stick, a foot-long flexible piece of material that is used in a glue gun.</p><p>"He said he on occasion struck young Josef with a belt but most of the time they struck him with the glue stick and that was for discipline. In the past they had used a switch but that didn't appear to be very effective," Gaynor said. "He said he knew Josef had all these abrasions on his body because he had treated some of them."</p><p>The father also told detectives of Josef's wild side, that the boy said he was "Legion, soldier of the devil" and the parents stayed awake at night after their son carved death threats against the family on walls of the house, Gaynor said.</p><p>"I pictured it as (the movie) 'The Exorcist' when you change your voice and become a different person. He said that young Josef would ... make note he wanted to kill everybody in his family," Gaynor said. "Because of the activities that young Josef was reportedly doing, the family was extremely tired. He (Joseph Smith) indicated it was very stressful for the family to have to take all these actions."</p><p>Earlier Wednesday, county firefighters said when they first responded to a 911 call for help at the Smith residence the was "covered" in what appeared to be bruises across his lower body.</p><p>Cobb County firefighter Jeremy DeJames said he found Josef on the floor and not breathing.</p><p>"While first arriving on the scene, I noticed a slight mark _ it looked like an older mark on his right arm," DeJames said. "Once in the hospital, I saw multiple marks on the child. I recall them to be lots of bruising, possibly some burn marks, that started from his lower back down to his ankles, and they were covered."</p><p>But DeJames admitted after questioning by defense attorney Manubir Singh Arora that he did not know for certain that the marks were bruises. A second firefighter, Andrew Rustin, also said he saw bruising and even what appeared to be burn marks on the boy's body.</p><p>"I've got an 8-year-old and he plays and falls ... but he doesn't have the bruising that we saw," Rustin said of Josef.</p><p>In opening arguments Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Dixon told jurors the boy was beaten by his parents, locked inside a wooden box and forced to stay in a closet for hours at a time before he finally died.</p><p>"Josef's body will tell you the story of what happened to him," Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Dixon said. "There was beating after beating after beating, and then he died."</p><p>Arora cautioned the jurors that they would see photographs depicting horrible injuries, but said those injuries "did not cause Josef's death." Arora said he would show that the medical examiner did not perform tests that would have cleared his clients.</p><p>On Oct. 8, 2003, police and emergency medical personnel went to a home in Mableton, 12 miles northwest of Atlanta, after a report of an unresponsive Josef, who later died at a children's hospital.</p><p>The parents were charged in a 14-count indictment in June with murder, cruelty to children, aggravated assault and false imprisonment.</p><p>The Smiths are members of the Franklin, Tenn.-based Remnant Fellowship Church, which grew out of church leader Gwen Shamblin's Weigh Down Workshop, a Christian diet program she created in 1986. Authorities raided the church in June 2004 as part of the investigation of Josef Smith's death.</p><p>"There was some indication that possibly the church was involved but nothing solid was ever determined," Gaynor said Wednesday during the trial.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2007/2/107125