(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)
At 10:29 a.m. on this date in 2013, 46-year-old Steven T. Smith was executed in Lucasville, Ohio for the 1998 murder of his girlfriend’s daughter, Autumn Breeze Carter.
Killer and victim.
The Ohio Parole Board called him “the worst of the worst” and concluded, “It is hard to fathom a crime more repulsive or reprehensible in character.”
No wonder: Smith had literally raped six-month-old Autumn to death.
Summing up the case in January 2002, the Ohio Supreme Court wrote,
We find nothing about the nature and circumstances of the offense to be mitigating. For ten to thirty minutes, Smith brutally raped and murdered Autumn Carter while her mother was asleep in the apartment. The violent nature of the attack was demonstrated by the fact that Autumn’s hair was ripped out, her vagina and anus were seriously damaged, she was suffocated by the weight of Smith on her small body, and she suffered subarachnoid and retinal hemorrhages. The crime is nothing less than a horrific, senseless murder committed against a small, defenseless baby.
Little Autumn died on the night of September 29, 1998. Her mother, nineteen-year-old Kesha Frye, woke up at 3:30 a.m. to discover a naked and extremely drunk Smith placing the baby’s naked body on the bed. Autumn’s tiny pink sleeper was found under the living room coffee table, clumps of her hair were on top of the coffee table, and shreds of her diaper were scattered around the room. The rest of the diaper was in a trash can outside.
According to court documents, paramedics summoned by Frye’s frantic 911 call
observed injuries on [Autumn’s] head and bruising around her eyes. They began CPR, and Autumn was transported to the hospital. The emergency room doctor testified that upon her arrival, Autumn had no pulse and had suffered a retinal hemorrhage. In addition to her visible bruising, the physician also stated that Autumn had bruising around her rectum and that the opening of her vagina was ten times the normal size for a baby her age…
They spent an hour trying to revive her, but it was too late.
Smith denied knowing anything about it: “I didn’t do anything. I’m not sick like that.”
He would keep up his denial for the next fourteen and a half years.
The cause of death was determined to be compression asphyxia and blunt force trauma to the head. Medical experts would testify that Smith could have suffocated the child by accident about three to five minutes into the assault, which may have lasted up to half an hour. The prosecution, however, contended he had deliberately beaten Autumn to death.
(During the trial, the coroner used a baby CPR doll to demonstrate how Autumn was injured. The doll’s head and one its legs actually came off in the process. One is reminded of the “Brides in the Bath” case where, when they were demonstrating how the defendant might have drowned his victim, they nearly killed their model.)
Five witnesses testified on Smith’s behalf during the sentencing phase of his trial. Relatives stated he’d started drinking at age nine or ten and struggled with an alcohol problem his whole life. His biological father was absent and his first stepfather was a violent substance abuser, but his second stepfather was a “decent guy” and his grandmother was also a positive influence early in his life.
A clinicial psychologist who tested him placed his IQ in the low-average range and could find nothing wrong with him mentally other than alcoholism and chronic, mild depression. A corrections officer testified Smith rarely broke the rules in jail and was always respectful of the guards. Prior to his arrest for Autumn’s murder, Smith’s only criminal convictions had been for DUI.
The month before his death, when he appealed to the parole board for clemency, Steve Smith finally admitted his crime. He said he hadn’t meant to kill Autumn and offered the lame excuse that he was too drunk to realize what he was doing. His attorneys called it “a horrible accident.”
That Steve Smith was very, very drunk that night was never in doubt. Eight hours after the attack his blood alcohol level tested at .123, well above the legal limit. The police found ten beer cans in the trash bin with Autumn’s diaper. An expert who testified for the defense believed Smith’s blood alcohol level was somewhere between .36 and .60 at the time of Autumn’s murder — enough to kill most people, but Smith had developed a tolerance.
Smith’s last meal consisted of fried fish, pizza, chocolate ice cream and soda. He declined to make a final statement. He only stared at his daughter behind the glass. She and her cousin wept after Smith was pronounced dead; Autumn’s family cheered.
The various people involved in the case had different reactions to Smith’s execution.
Kesha Frye: “I’m glad he’s dead, and I hope he burns in hell.”
Patrick Hicks, Autumn’s grandfather: “Because of him, Autumn never had a chance to take her first step, she never had her first birthday or a first day at school. It’s just unfortunate that this man gets to die a peaceful death after the torture he put Autumn through.”
Brittney Smith, Steve’s 21-year-old daughter: “I know my dad’s innocent. I do not believe he did this, and you know, he raised all my cousins, my sister before I was even born, and he never did anything [sexual].”
Steve’s attorney: “He was well-behaved and sober while in prison, causing no problems in the institution and living each day with the guilt and grief caused by his alcohol-fueled crime. While some may trumpet his execution as appropriate revenge for his crime, Ohio is no safer having executed Steven Smith than had he lived the remained of his natural life in prison.”
Maybe so. But Ohio probably felt better for it.
On this day..
- 2012: Michael Selsor
- 1813: Adriana Bouwman, guillotined at The Hague
- 1928: Xiang Jingyu, Communist
- 1691: William Macqueen, the Irish Teague
- 1942: Robert "Rattlesnake" James, the last man hanged by California
- 1945: Charlotte Rebhun, Righteous Gentile
- 1897: John Gibson, under Jim Crow
- 1861: Anton Petrov, of Bezdna
- 1830: The slave Jerry, the last American execution by burning?
- 2009: Delara Darabi, "Oh mother, I can see the noose"
- 1820: The Cato Street Conspirators
- 1461: James Butler, War of the Roses casualty