GUILTY PA - Wesley Webb, 40, recorded her own murder, Phoenixville, 2 May 2016

Just before Wesley Webb was killed on May 2, prosecutors said, she activated an audio recording program on her phone, capturing events from the shooting to the arrival of police officers at the home she shared with her killer. On the recording, they said, the sound of the gunshot can be heard and then Webb's killer's voice uttering an expletive followed by, "How's that? That's where we just went."

Prosecutors announced murder charges Wednesday against Keith Robert Smith in connection with Webb's slaying at their home in Phoenixville, near Philadelphia, where three children were present.

Click to expand...

Per the local district attorney, Smith “did not hesitate to kill his girlfriend. But he flinched when it came to killing himself.” He survived the shooting and is hospitalized in stable condition, charged with first-degree murder, third-degree murder, and endangering the welfare of children.

Click to expand...

It took some courtroom cajolery, a little verbal arm-twisting, and, to be fair, just some plain, old-fashioned judicial prerogative in the end, but Monday Judge William P. Mahon got a firm date for the murder trial of a man whose alleged shotgun slaying of his girlfriend was recorded on her cellphone.

Mahon ordered the two attorneys handling the case to be attached by the Chester County Court Administration Office for Aug. 21 to try the case of Keith Robert Smith, who authorities say shot the mother of his children following a heated argument in the couple’s Schuylkill Township home.

Click to expand...

Keith Robert Smith pleaded guilty before Common Pleas Court Judge William P. Mahon to charges of third-degree murder, endangering the welfare of children, recklessly endangering another person, and possession of an instrument of crime for fatally shooting his girlfriend in the township home they shared with his son and her two children.

After firing a single shot from the gun into the chest of 40-year-old Wesley Webb, Smith reportedly said,“How’s that? That’s where we just went.”

Smith was sentenced to 28 to 56 years in state prison in the shotgun killing, which took place while Webb recorded their confrontation on her cell phone. The deal was part of an agreement worked out between the prosecution and Smith’s defense attorney.

Click to expand...

Assistant District Attorney Alexander Gosfield said in an email to Digital First Media that his office had agreed to withdraw the most serious charge against Keith Robert Smith and allow him to enter a guilty plea to the lesser charge of third-degree murder in order to spare his child and those of his girlfriend the possibility of having to testify against him.

But Gosfield, who handled the prosecution with fellow Assistant District Attorney Samantha Ryan, insisted that his office would have been able to secure a first-degree murder conviction against Smith had he rejected the plea offer, and with it the mandatory life without parole sentence that comes with such a verdict.

“The Commonwealth and the family agreed that the evidence was more than sufficient to prove first degree murder, but that the risk of harm to the children was not worth pursuing the matter to trial if (Smith) was willing to accept the plea proposed,” Gosfield said in the email. “The Commonwealth’s primary purpose in this plea was to make it unnecessary for the children to testify.”

Click to expand...