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Trial examines mom's actions when baby died
By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN
© St. Petersburg Times, TAMPA -- What happened to Sherrideen Smith's 3-month-old daughter last year was either a horrible accident or a terrible crime. A jury of five men and one woman will soon decide. Jurors began hearing testimony Tuesday in the second-degree murder trial of Smith, the Tampa woman accused of smothering her baby with blankets in March 2000. Smith, 26, faces life in prison if convicted. Prosecutor Kim Seace spent the first part of the trial on Tuesday questioning a slew of Smith's former neighbors about her demeanor the day her baby died. They told stories of odd behavior and slow reactions. But Smith's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Ken Littman, said her reaction was based on shock. "It was an accident," Littman said. Smith's daughter, Akua, died on March 23, 2000. Defense attorneys said Smith accidentally suffocated her baby after wrapping her with blankets because it was cold. Prosecutors contended that she purposely killed her baby and gave authorities 11 different explanations as to how the baby died. In attacking the defense version, Seace asked neighbors what they wore that day to show that the weather was warm enough for shorts and T-shirts. One witness, a van driver for a day care center, said she heard a baby crying when she arrived outside Smith's unit at Central Park Village near downtown shortly before 7 a.m. that day. Soon after -- the exact time is unclear -- Smith walked into her neighbor's house to say she needed to call 911. Neighbor Timika Black testified that she went to Smith's apartment and attempted CPR on Akua, who was lying still in her bassinet, a pair of diapers wrapped around her hands. Smith left Black and went to another neighbor's house to use the telephone. Gwendolyn Bryant testified that Smith sat on her couch and waited about five minutes before calling 911. Bryant said she told her son, Marco Bryant, to run over to Smith's apartment to check on the baby. Marco Bryant testified that he ran to the house, saw Black hovering over the child, and started administering CPR techniques that he had learned in school. Marco Bryant said he heard the sirens and ran downstairs with the child in his arms. A neighbor had called 911 at 7:47 a.m. Smith's emergency call came in a minute later. Marco Bryant testified that he never saw Smith cry that day. "She started cussing," Marco Bryant said. "I guess she must've been some kind of mad." Smith, sitting between her two attorneys, sometimes protested the testimony of her former neighbors by shaking her head or whispering to her attorneys. The trial resumes today.
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From the Times Ernest Hooper |
