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Prostitute killer's fate tied to his pastBy SUE CARLTON © St. Petersburg Times, published January 23, 1999 TAMPA -- In the intensely religious Tennessee home of his childhood, Sam Smithers regularly felt the sting of a leather belt, a parental effort to "beat the devil" out of him, his brother testified Friday. Smithers would grow up to become a devoted father, a likable co-worker, a mild-mannered guy. Or so it seemed. Last month, Smithers also became a convicted murderer, found guilty of using an ax and a hoe when he killed two Hillsborough Avenue prostitutes and dumped their bodies in a pond near Plant City in 1996. Jurors are expected to ponder those varying depictions of Smithers today as they decide whether to recommend life in prison or death in the electric chair for the murders of Christy Cowan and Denise Roach. The hacked, beaten and strangled bodies of the two women, killed the same month, were found floating in a pond on some property where Smithers was paid to mow the grass. The gruesome discovery was made after the landowner showed up to find Smithers calmly hosing off a long-handled ax, a puddle of blood nearby. Today, when testimony in the penalty phase of the trial is completed, the question between life and death could come down to this: Is Smithers simply a cold killer? Or is Smithers himself the victim of childhood abuse, religious repression, mental illness and brain damage? The former church deacon listened closely Friday as one of his four brothers spoke of how they listened as children as their father beat their mother. At nightly "devotions" of singing and reading, their feverishly religious mother would whip the boys with a belt "basically to beat the devil out of us," Robert Smithers testified. Sam, the youngest, always held his feelings inside, his brother said. Sam Smithers, now 45, first got into trouble with the law after he put out a fire at his church and became a local hero. Authorities later discovered that Smithers was so thrilled by the attention that he set a series of small fires afterward, always making sure he was on hand to extinguish them, his brother said. He married his first and only girlfriend and was "the best kind of dad" to their son, his brother said. Jonathan Smithers, now a baseball shortstop in college , testified briefly on his father's behalf. Family members said Smithers had fallen on his head as a baby, and had once been hit over the head with a shotgun by a robber at a gas station. As the case concludes today, prosecutors are expected to argue that Smithers' in-control behavior shows he deliberately carried out the murders, was not delusional and knew exactly what he was doing. Hillsborough Circuit Judge William Fuenteno ultimately will decide Smithers' punishment at a later hearing, giving the jury's recommendation great weight.
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