VA - Betsy Smith, 22, raped & murdered, Spotsylvania, 3 Sept 2007

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Smurf said:
He may be all messed up but what 16 year old doesn't know they are raping someone; especially his own sister..I'm ooged out about that. Then to hit a baby with a sledgehammer; wouldn't he have to go to the garage or something to get a sledgehammer? It wouldn't be just sitting there in the house I wouldn't think-sounds premeditated to me.
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i reread the story and this is what i got. the 16yr old boy went to his 22yr old sisters room. the 1 year old and the 2 year old must have been in the same room with the 22 year old. he stabbed and hit his sister with a hammer before he raped her. then he hit the 2yr old when it cried. this would have been early monday morning. he then locked the room with both babies and his dead or dying sister in it. the hammer and knife seem to have be brought to the room to attack the 22yr old and he used the hammer on the baby only when it cried.

a few things strike me as strange.
1. the door had a pad lock on the out side.
2. nobody missed the 22year old or either baby til afternoon.
3. the 2year old was hit hard enough to break her nose and fracture her skull but was able to clearly lie about the event and blame a fuse box the family claims.
4. blood. he told police he stabbed her before he raped her. no matter how crazy he was he seemed to know to lock the door and clean all the blood off him so that the rest the family did not seem alarmed.
5. the mother claims her son did not do it and remembers nothing. yet he was the 1 who went into the room with the dead bloodied body to get the baby and he raised no alarm.
6. the mother ignores the fact he relocked the door after he got the baby out because when police arrived it was again locked.
7. once the child was found hurt nobody in the family looked for the 22yr old who shared a room with this baby.
 
sherri79 said:
i reread the story and this is what i got. the 16yr old boy went to his 22yr old sisters room. the 1 year old and the 2 year old must have been in the same room with the 22 year old. he stabbed and hit his sister with a hammer before he raped her. then he hit the 2yr old when it cried. this would have been early monday morning. he then locked the room with both babies and his dead or dying sister in it. the hammer and knife seem to have be brought to the room to attack the 22yr old and he used the hammer on the baby only when it cried.

a few things strike me as strange.
1. the door had a pad lock on the out side.
2. nobody missed the 22year old or either baby til afternoon.
3. the 2year old was hit hard enough to break her nose and fracture her skull but was able to clearly lie about the event and blame a fuse box the family claims.
4. blood. he told police he stabbed her before he raped her. no matter how crazy he was he seemed to know to lock the door and clean all the blood off him so that the rest the family did not seem alarmed.
5. the mother claims her son did not do it and remembers nothing. yet he was the 1 who went into the room with the dead bloodied body to get the baby and he raised no alarm.
6. the mother ignores the fact he relocked the door after he got the baby out because when police arrived it was again locked.
7. once the child was found hurt nobody in the family looked for the 22yr old who shared a room with this baby.
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Yes, good points, I smell a cover up of some sorts, I hope the truth comes out.
 
Nope looks like I was wrong. I just read the article....Mom's lying (or the kid lied to her.)

She says he doesn't remember anything. Yet police say Smith is who told them what happened.
 
sherri79 said:
i reread the story and this is what i got. the 16yr old boy went to his 22yr old sisters room. the 1 year old and the 2 year old must have been in the same room with the 22 year old. he stabbed and hit his sister with a hammer before he raped her. then he hit the 2yr old when it cried. this would have been early monday morning. he then locked the room with both babies and his dead or dying sister in it. the hammer and knife seem to have be brought to the room to attack the 22yr old and he used the hammer on the baby only when it cried.

a few things strike me as strange.
1. the door had a pad lock on the out side.
2. nobody missed the 22year old or either baby til afternoon.
3. the 2year old was hit hard enough to break her nose and fracture her skull but was able to clearly lie about the event and blame a fuse box the family claims.
4. blood. he told police he stabbed her before he raped her. no matter how crazy he was he seemed to know to lock the door and clean all the blood off him so that the rest the family did not seem alarmed.
5. the mother claims her son did not do it and remembers nothing. yet he was the 1 who went into the room with the dead bloodied body to get the baby and he raised no alarm.
6. the mother ignores the fact he relocked the door after he got the baby out because when police arrived it was again locked.
7. once the child was found hurt nobody in the family looked for the 22yr old who shared a room with this baby.
Click to expand...

Great analysis!
 
What a train wreck. You are right on point sherry79. I'm speechless.
 
Va. Teenager Charged With Killing Sister

Sledgehammer Murder

In articles that I am seeing, there is no mention of who was at home that day, or whether Mom had been home all day. They do think the kids were locked into the bedroom for about 12 hrs.

Since Mom did give some quotes, I am suprised that there wasn't any mention of whether or not she was at home. Maybe a possibility of more arrests???
 
Sheriff Howard Smith said the victim was baby-sitting the children, who were her cousins.
The suspect let the children out of the locked room about 12 hours later after they started crying again, which is when her mother noticed she was bleeding.
The one-year-old was not injured.
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who is "her" ? was the mother i bolded the mother of the 2 year old or the mother of the dead 22 year old?

i ask because it is another clue as to what went on in this house. if it is the mother of the toddler then why had she not asked about her child before the child was heard crying?
 
ok this case has been on my mind all day. the pad lock on the outside of the door is bugging me alot. i have spoke before about being a victim of sex abuse but i have not spoke of other family members because it is not my story to tell. i can speak of event but not the emotion behind them and to me that is as important as the abuse its self. i only bring it up now because it factors greatly on my gut feelings about this case. i want you guys to tell me if my past experience in my family is causing me to lose my objectivity.

when i was 10 til i was 12 my cousins lived with us. cps had taken them from their mother because of abuse. she was a addict and allowed men to abuse the kids in exchange for drugs. the kids were a boy age 9, a girl age 4 and a girl age 2 when they first moved into our home. 1 week after the kids moved in i woke to my mother screaming. my bed room was right off the living room and my mother woke because she heard someone moving around in the house. i ran in the living room and saw both the 9 and 4 year old naked. the girl was on the couch with her brother on top of her. my mother saw me and screamed for me to go back in my room about the same time my father came running in the room. the next day my parents put a padlock on the outside of the girls bedroom door. why they locked the girls in the room instead of him i dont know.

this case makes me wonder if the lock on the outside was to protect those inside and he just got the key.
 
You probably know this. In the scenario you stated the children were doing learned behavior. They had been forced to have sex and the term is that they were sexualized. That is how they knew to deal others- through sex. For them- even though it was a forced behavior, it was what was "normal" to them. They may have found parts of it they liked, they may have learned to connect and/or comfort each other that way or they may have been using that as a form of subjugation of others. It sometimes happens with chronic abuse that started young and/or lasted for an extended period. To be honest, the 4 yr old could have easily been the initiator even at her age.

I thought about protection being the reason for the lock on the door. But usually if you are going to lock for protection you put the lock on the inside and give them the key. What if she had to get up to the bathroom at night? What if there was a fire?
To put a lock on her door on the outside is more like- protecting others from her (and at her age, if she made advances to minors she should have been reported to police.) I have seen it used to keep a teen from running away, or going out at night (that is illegal.) But I have also seen it used to incarcerate older teens or young adults who may have a type of mental handicap (still illegal.) Lastly, if someone in the home has a problem with theft, I have seen older teens/young adults buy locks to put on the outside of their door to keep someone from going in their room while they were gone. This is the most likely scenario.

sherri79 said:
ok this case has been on my mind all day. the pad lock on the outside of the door is bugging me alot. i have spoke before about being a victim of sex abuse but i have not spoke of other family members because it is not my story to tell. i can speak of event but not the emotion behind them and to me that is as important as the abuse its self. i only bring it up now because it factors greatly on my gut feelings about this case. i want you guys to tell me if my past experience in my family is causing me to lose my objectivity.

when i was 10 til i was 12 my cousins lived with us. cps had taken them from their mother because of abuse. she was a addict and allowed men to abuse the kids in exchange for drugs. the kids were a boy age 9, a girl age 4 and a girl age 2 when they first moved into our home. 1 week after the kids moved in i woke to my mother screaming. my bed room was right off the living room and my mother woke because she heard someone moving around in the house. i ran in the living room and saw both the 9 and 4 year old naked. the girl was on the couch with her brother on top of her. my mother saw me and screamed for me to go back in my room about the same time my father came running in the room. the next day my parents put a padlock on the outside of the girls bedroom door. why they locked the girls in the room instead of him i dont know.

this case makes me wonder if the lock on the outside was to protect those inside and he just got the key.
Click to expand...
 
Authorities say a detective found the suspect’s sister in her bedroom at 8206 Brock Road around 8 Monday night. A padlock was still on the door of Betsy's room when he arrived at the Smith's home. The Sheriff says the investigator initially went there to investigate a possible child abuse case.

Deputies were called after Mary Smith saw blood on her granddaughter's face and the child was taken to a local hospital. The Sheriff says she heard one of the toddler's crying around 3 p.m. Monday and that her teenage son went into the locked room, brought them the youngsters out, and
relocked the door with his sister's body inside the bedroom.

The wounded toddler and her 1-year-old brother had been locked in the bedroom with the victim’s body for about fourteen hours. The little girl had a fractured skull and a broken nose. She was last reported to be in serious condition. Her brother was not harmed.

The sheriff says that the teen’s parents were at home when the attacks occurred around 1 a.m. Monday, but they apparently heard nothing. Their daughter had stab wounds as well as being beaten and raped. Police did recover a sledgehammer and a kitchen knife from the home. The sheriff describes some of the victim's knife wounds as defensive.

Mary Smith showed reporters a picture of her murdered child and said, "She was a good daughter."

The Smiths say their son had suffered from depression in the past but stopped taking his medication some time ago.

Walter Smith says he knew of no trouble between his son and daughter. "They’ve been getting along, I don’t know if he snapped or what," Smith said.

Some relatives told 9NEWS NOW that it was obvious the family needed help from the looks of their living conditions. The Smith's home had boarded up windows and piles of debris.

Neely says he plans to look into the circumstances surrounding the 16-year-old suspect's home life. Sheriff Smith says deputies had been called to the family's residence a few times for routine disturbances such as excessive noise or drinking.
http://www.wusa9.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=62460
 
Taximom said:
That's HORRIBLE. Am I reading right? The rest of the family was in the house?!
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Yes, the family was in the house. I don't know how they didn't hear this attack or the children crying for so many hours (14 hours, I believe).

I read some comments after the news article on WUSA9 and it is said by a poster who claims to know them that the boy abused drugs.
 
Smurf said:
Oh man, this snapped big time. I hope he is tried as an adult and gets the d/p. Nothing out yet about what led up to this horrible attack?
Click to expand...

I don't understand this. When a teenager who is under the age of 18 has sex, they are considered young and underage, but when they kill someone they are considered an adult? Double standard.

If every teen who goes around killing someone is charged as an adult then why not just lower the adult age?
 
sherri79 said:
ok this case has been on my mind all day. the pad lock on the outside of the door is bugging me alot. i have spoke before about being a victim of sex abuse but i have not spoke of other family members because it is not my story to tell. i can speak of event but not the emotion behind them and to me that is as important as the abuse its self. i only bring it up now because it factors greatly on my gut feelings about this case. i want you guys to tell me if my past experience in my family is causing me to lose my objectivity.

when i was 10 til i was 12 my cousins lived with us. cps had taken them from their mother because of abuse. she was a addict and allowed men to abuse the kids in exchange for drugs. the kids were a boy age 9, a girl age 4 and a girl age 2 when they first moved into our home. 1 week after the kids moved in i woke to my mother screaming. my bed room was right off the living room and my mother woke because she heard someone moving around in the house. i ran in the living room and saw both the 9 and 4 year old naked. the girl was on the couch with her brother on top of her. my mother saw me and screamed for me to go back in my room about the same time my father came running in the room. the next day my parents put a padlock on the outside of the girls bedroom door. why they locked the girls in the room instead of him i dont know.

this case makes me wonder if the lock on the outside was to protect those inside and he just got the key.
Click to expand...

Good scenerio but why the lock on the outside and not on the inside. I wonder if this was her regular room or maybe she was just in there for the night. So sorry to hear about your family. Whatever happened to your cousins, did they get help? I hope so.
 
imthemom said:
Good scenerio but why the lock on the outside and not on the inside. I wonder if this was her regular room or maybe she was just in there for the night. So sorry to hear about your family. Whatever happened to your cousins, did they get help? I hope so.
Click to expand...
in a effort to be brief and not hijack the thread ... the had therapy once a week when they lived with us and the case worker said it would continue when they moved on to other family members. the oldest killed himself at 18 on Christmas eve. the middle girl is in prison for assault. stabbed her boyfriend in the thigh with a fork. the youngest is in college on a full scholarship and doing well.
 
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